Last night’s tilt between the Dallas Stars and the Detroit Red Wings featured perhaps the worst call of the season, no exaggeration. With Dallas leading 2-1 in the third period, Detroit’s Brad May squeaked a backhander past the shortside post to tie the game.
And by that, I mean “he didn’t.”
The play continued for a few seconds after the puck had gone in, with Brad May (and possibly Dallas goalie Alex Auld) being the only people in the building who had seen the goal. Referee Dennis LaRue then blew the play dead, and the refs and linesmen conferred behind the net before heading over to the penalty box, where the NHL’s video warroom in Toronto was waiting on the phone to speak to Mr. LaRue.
Watch the whole thing unfold on YouTube.
After some debate, LaRue ultimately waved off the goal, claiming that the whistle had killed the play before the puck crossed the goal line. The problem there is that this is an outright lie. Watch the clip I link to above, and you’ll see that the whistle clearly sounds several seconds after the puck is in the net. (Other highlights in the video include the colour commentator drawing a boob at 1:07, and again at 3:43.) So the reason the goal was disallowed? The referees meant to blow the whistle, they claimed. The Wings would end up losing 3-1, in a game that would have gone very differently if May’s goal had been allowed.
That intent to blow the whistle wound up killing the Toronto Maple Leafs in tonight’s game against Carolina as well. In the midst of a goalmouth scramble in OT, the puck slid past Hurricanes goalie Manny Legace and into the back of the net; again, it clearly happened before the play was blown dead. Referee Ian Walsh, however, decided that they probably should’ve given the whistle a little toot a few seconds beforehand, despite the fact that the puck had still been loose. The big problem here? Walsh was standing over the play, with his whistle in his mouth already, and chose not to blow it until after the puck crossed the line. The Leafs went on to lose in a shootout.
Here’s how the whole “intent to blow the whistle” thing shakes out in section 32.2 of the NHL Rulebook:
As there is a human factor involved in blowing the whistle to stop
play, the Referee may deem the play to be stopped slightly prior to the whistle actually being blown. The fact that the puck may come loose or cross the goal line prior to the sound of the whistle has no bearing if the Referee has ruled that the play had been stopped prior to this happening.
Why would there be a rule like this? You’ll notice the reference to the “human factor” that’s involved in refereeing. This is to deal with mistakes, but clearly, the spirit of the rule is to help when refs were unable to blow the whistle in a timely manner due to a number of possible causes:
- dropped whistle
- was interfered with by players
- was being devoured by a school of piranhas
If a referee is going to use the “I meant to blow the whistle already” excuse, there has to be some solid logic behind it, unlike in the aforementioned Wings and Leafs games. There was no possible reason for the play to be blown dead prior to May’s goal, while in the Leafs game, the only reason the ref could have had for stopping play was that he couldn’t see the puck (though it was still loose). There was no reason for them to disallow those goals whatsoever. And as the writer over at Slapshot put it so eloquently, “Steve Bernier has the intent to put the puck somewhere other than the goalie’s chest when he shoots at an open net too, but he doesn’t get a goal for thinking about it.”
The problem with this rule is obvious: if it’s misused, it gives the referees way too much authority. Any goal that’s scored during a goalmouth scramble could be called back if the ref decided the goalie had control at any point - another thing that’s completely up to the referee’s discretion, no matter how minimal that control might be. Any player jamming at a rebound might find his resulting reward revoked, all because the ref decided that morning that he wants to protect goalies. Such a use of the rule gives the officials way too much discretion on whether goals have been scored, and it allows them to ignore any compelling video evidence if they’re scared that they were wrong initially. This appears to have happened in the above cases, both of which had a major impact on the outcome of the game, and in Toronto’s case, took away the win.
In all, these two calls set a dangerous precedent, and if LaRue and Walsh aren’t reprimanded by the league, the Red Wings and Maple Leafs need to start causing a ruckus.
