NHL deems goalies fair game
CHICAGO — When Game 1 of the Western Conference final here Sunday afternoon was nearly turned on its ear by a controversial goalno goal call, we predicted a series entitled When Jonathans Collide was certain to follow. Well, here’s Episode 1. The plot is about the fine line between going to the net hard and burying the goalie. And it’s about the giant grey gulf between burying the goalie and actually getting called for burying the goalie.
And it’s about the National Hockey League’s mystifying reluctance to submit the controversial goals arising from that giant grey gulf to automatic video review.
Two events tie this episode together: New York Rangers forward Chris Kreider’s accidental-on-purpose skates-first slide into Carey Price in Game 1 of the Eastern final that evidently has put the Montreal Canadiens’ goalie out for the rest of the series, and Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews’s steamrolling of Los Angeles Kings goalie Jonathan Quick in Game 1 of the Western final.
No goal arose from either incident, although the latter involved a supposedly verboten conversation with the war room in Toronto before (or possibly after) the officials on the ice conferred and decided Toews’s goal would not count, owing to “incidental contact” before the puck entered the net.
Incidental evidently covers everything from a mild bump to a four-car pileup.
The first event has ramped up emotions between the Habs and Rangers to heights never dreamt of between these playoff strangers.
The second seemed destined to send Chicago coach Joel Quenneville’s blood pressure through the roof. But he was somewhat more philosophical Monday, the first of two off-days between games 1 and 2. Of course, his team won the opener 3-1.
Every coach, he said, tells his forwards to go hard to the opponent’s net, and every coach tells his defencemen to box out and prevent the other team’s forwards from doing the same. So every coach is conflicted. True, the Kings’ Darryl Sutter said.
“I think always when your goalie gets hit, you’re defending your goalie. As attacking players, you’re telling your players to go to the net,” Sutter said. “Such a fine line. If you look at the Montreal play, they’re both right. If you look at our play last night, they’re both right.
“One guy’s trying to score, which is what we’ve tried to do ever since the game was first played, and the goalie’s trying to stop the puck. I’m just glad we’re (discussing whether) it was a goal or not a goal. I’m glad we’re not talking about it today because our goalie was hurt. Not that their Jonathan was trying to run into our Jonathan, just the point that our goalie wasn’t hurt.”
Montreal wasn’t so lucky on a collision that looked no more violent than Toews’s headlong tumble over top of Quick.
Neither Kreider nor Toews received a penalty on the play.
“The way the league is, the way it’s called, it’s something that you talk about a lot,” Quenneville said. “But to say exactly how to prevent it…?”
There may be no way to get the correct penalty call on every goalmouth collision, but on scoring plays, there’s no excuse for not getting it right.
It’s a technological development that began as replay on Hockey Night in Canada in 1955 and instant replay on CBS in 1963.
A half-century later, everybody’s using it to help officials out. But not on controversial scoring plays involving contact with the goaltender, in hockey, because that would be … what would it be, exactly?
“I’m really comfortable with the process the way it works now. Most of it does come from Toronto, unless it’s a definitive call on the ice,” Sutter said.
To take it a step further would be “to take it right out of the official’s hands, which is not what I want, what anybody wants,” the Kings coach said. “I mean, that was the intent of the two-referee system, give a little bit more power to the linesmen in situations like that, so they go and talk about it quick. That’s what they did.
“You know, there was a lot of talk this past summer about throwing the flag. But our game is not stop, start. It’s more on the fly. So the more that you pull those situations into it, the more it sort of spaces your game out. I’m not for that.”
The general managers have been kicking around the idea of reviewing goaltender interference on scoring plays, but as of March’s GM meetings, the consensus was there was no appetite for it.
It may happen yet. But here is the thing:
There are 5.5 goals scored in an average NHL game, of which maybe one or two on any given night are in the grey area of obstructioncontact-interference.
So let’s go big and say three times a game such a play occurs, because maybe one goal is disallowed. Three times a night, probably not that many, play might be held up to get the call right.
Would that really be a major imposition? Would it destroy the flow of the game, or is the flow of the game already an inside joke, because three times per period it is interrupted for two-minute commercial breaks, during which the live viewers get an eyeful of ice girls?
The rules on goalie obstruction and interference have been extensively rewritten since the days when the tip of Brett Hull’s skate blade inside the goal crease caused the entire city of Buffalo to lose its mind in the 1999 Stanley Cup final.
But the result is that it’s now Hudson’s Bay rules around the net.
The steamrolling, on Sunday, got more consideration than the defenceman, L.A.’s Alec Martinez, who got a little overzealous trying to clear a convention around Quick and was handed the penalty that led to the Hawks’ first goal.
Goalie interference is not a simple fix, but it is fixable. Review every scoring play that’s the least bit controversial. Run a couple of commercials while the zebras are on the phone to Toronto, and cut out an equivalent number from the three mandated breaks per period.
Either that, or give the referees more discretion to call it when a goaltender gets hit. Contact equals interference. It’s rarely incidental and even more rarely accidental.
Call it, or let Toronto call it. Disallow the goal and call the penalty, when warranted.
This episode is brought to you by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Goalies.
There will be sequels. Bet on it.