A POLL FOUND 53% AGREEING WITH GAUDREAU AND THE NHL.

“If it’s debatable, the league’s not into taking away goals.

“You can look at a lot of shootout goals with some of the different moves guys make, they drag and pull themselves sideways — they’re just creative these days. I think with these types of goals if you see it excessively they’ll call it, but if it’s arguable they’re not going to take that creativity away. Hey, the guys loved the goal. People liked the goal.”

People liked the spin-o-rama, too, but the league banished that in 2014, in part, because it often wasn’t clear it adhered to the penalty shot rule, which states, “the puck must be kept in motion towards the opponent’s goal-line…”

In this case, while Gaudreau was clearly moving away from the net to buy time, the puck continued to move ever so slightly toward the goal-line.

“I don’t think he went backwards at all,” said Flames captain Mark Giordano.

“(The Wild) thought he went backwards, but I think the puck kept spinning. Man, to have that sort of touch from there reminded me of one (Pavel) Datsyuk scored a while ago. That’s some pretty good touch. I think we’ll be watching that one for a while.”

One for the ages, indeed, even if it wasn’t planned at all.

“Yeah probably my nicest one, for sure,” beamed the NHL’s fourth-leading scorer, who has only converted on a shockingly low three of 14 shootout attempts.

“I wasn’t thinking I was going to be doing that move. I was kind of running out of real estate there and the goalie came out at me a little farther than I thought he would. If he’s out that far he’s kind of falling and he’s a small goaltender, so I had space to chip it over him and it dropped right in there.”

And landed him smack dab in the middle of the type of dispute hockey fans enjoy.