The Penguins’ game-winning goal looked like it might have been offside

The Boston Bruins-Pittsburgh Penguins game tonight was a thriller, with great end-to-end action, some sketchy goaltending and some great offensive talents on display.

The game ended on a play between two of those great offensive talents, Phil Kessel and Evgeni Malkin.

Kessel regrouped quickly after a bad Bruins line change, and teamed up with Malkin for a perfect 2-on-1 to give the Penguins the win.

But was it offside?

Here’s the highlight (link here if you don’t see the embed), from Chris (@CrzyCanucklehed):

Live, it looks pretty close. The linesman, off to the left of the screen, appeared to be right on top of things.

When you take a freeze-frame look, however, it gets a little closer:

NBCSN

Hmmmmm. To quote Super Troopers...ENHANCE.

NBSCN

You could certainly argue that it looks like the puck is on the blue line and both skates are in the zone.

There is a provision in the rule that allows a player to precede the puck into the zone if he’s in complete possession of the puck at the time. However, Kessel is reaching back for the puck because of a stick-check by David Pastrnak.

Did he completely lose the puck? No. But did he have complete control? Ehhhhh...

It’s important to note that this is a trailing view of the play, so it’s possible that the puck was elevated in the zone and just looks like it’s on the blue line.

However, the play was certainly closer than NBCSN made it appear.

In fact, it’s unclear if there was an official review on the play.

Regardless, great finish by Kessel and Malkin. Part of me doesn’t like these millimeter-close offside reviews anyways, but the other part of me is super bitter that the Bruins lost so I’M CONFLICTED.

EDIT (12:32 PM): Here's a new angle that shows, clearly, Kessel was in the zone before the puck.

This would mean that the refs ruled he maintained possession, rendering other arguments useless.