Last week, the Florida Panthers General Manager Dale Tallon announced he wanted to discuss the possibility of implementing a coach’s replay challenge system at this week’s GM meetings in Toronto. The idea caught some air leading up to the discussion room, but it seems once the GMs got behind closed doors, Tallon’s suggestion was left out in the cold. The system would focus on goal challenges, but could be expanded to include penalty calls, missed calls, or anything else. In the end, it was just too broad.

One argument the GMs had against the implementation of a coach challenge system is that more often than not, a coach will not need to challenge a call, but will do so anyway to give his team an extra timeout. They’re probably right, but they can avoid it. Coaches already use television timeouts to their advantage, and nobody complains about that. The NHL could certainly come up with a way to minimize the time it takes to review a play, or at least minimize the kinds of plays that a coach can challenge.

Another reason the GMs say they’re hesitant to implement a challenge system is because it takes away the “human element.” This is nothing more than an excuse to allow the wrong call to stand. It happens in every sport. The problem with this is that every home viewer and in some sports, stadium spectators get upwards of 10 instant replays from five different angles of a bad call. The only one who doesn’t see the blown call is the only one who has the power to reverse it: the referee.

It seems that challenges will not emerge in the NHL anytime soon, if at all. The GMs shelved the idea and even Tallon has admitted that there’s not much more to discuss on the dead issue. The league should try to find a way to make every call a correct one, but a coach challenge system doesn’t feel like the right way to do it. So it’s back to the drawing board for Tallon and other forward-thinking members in the NHL offices.