I am currently watching the Holy Cross at Denver University game. There was a play that was under review for at least 10 minutes. I am guessing they are using the WCHA rules, since it is in Denver.

What happened was a DU player went to shoot the puck in the offensive zone, just trying to get the puck in deep. The puck hit the linesman and the Holy Cross goalie was out of the net, not expecting the deflection, and the puck slid past the diving goalie and into the net.

They took forever reviewing the play. Apparently, it makes a difference if the goalie had touched the puck at all before it went into the net. That is all they were looking at. It ended up being called a no goal.

l always thought that anything off the linesman or refs was still in play. So why did it matter if the goalie touched it or not? And why was it disallowed?
He was on the ice, just inside the zone. He was trying to avoid it but couldn't. Definitely not sitting

Where was the linesmen. Was he on the boards on the bench the he would have been out of play. and play is dead when the puck touches something out of play.

They made the correct call of no goal based on ur description. The location of the official is not relevant to the situation.

Rule 6-18-c-13 of the NCAA rulebook addresses this exact situation.
''A goal shall not be allowed. #13 If the puck hits an official & goes directly into the net.''

l am not sure why there was such a long delay, it is a pretty black & white situation at most levels of hockey. According to the situation manual in the rule book, a goal will be disallowed if the puck deflects off of an official & off of another player prior to entering the net. My interpretation of that is if the goaltender attempts to make a save that has deflected off of an official & gets a piece of the puck in the process, the goal should still be waved off. l assume they were not trying to determine whether it actually hit the official or not, he should have been able to confirm that.

The same rule applies to USA Hockey & the NHL as well.