NHL defends controversial call on Rangers
Alain Vigneault called it. The Rangers coach was incensed Thursday night in Carolina when his team gave up the game-tying goal on what he thought was clearly goaltender interference, eventually leading to a 4-3 loss to the Hurricanes. But Vigneault also knew the league would defend the call.
And that’s just what they did when a NHL spokesman responded to The Post by email Friday morning, saying it was incidental contact outside of the crease when Elias Lindholm’s elbow lifted goalie Antti Raanta’s mask, allowing for Sebastian Aho’s long point shot to go in and tie the game, 3-3, at 9:04 of the third period.
The explanation, which was asked to be paraphrased, went on to say Lindholm was not in the crease, he was moving laterally, and did not extend any body part or clip Raanta as he was going by.
“You ask the league, but they’re going to spin it any way to look all right,” Vigneault said after the game. “That’s the way it always is.”
Of course, Vigneault likely cooled off during Friday’s day off as his team prepares for a practice on Saturday in Westchester and a game against the Red Wings in Detroit on Sunday night. That will be the end of a fourgame road trip — with a nice stop at home in between — and it’s the first leg of a backto-back that finishes with a Garden match against the Lightning on Monday.
And though Vigneault was upset with the call, it hardly does away with the fact the Blueshirts were badly outplayed in the third period by a team that was 26th-overall in the league. It was 20 minutes that showed the same lack of jump and energy that defined the week before they went away, when they lost three of four.
That bleeding was stopped by sweeping the first two games of the trip through both teams in Florida in a grinding, hard-fought fashion. Then the first two periods in Carolina were solid enough while allowing their struggling power play to score three times following a 0-for-26 drought over the previous 10 contests.
But then came the call that tied the game, and Vigneault’s coaches’ challenge was shot down. The explanation he got from the crew of Francois St. Laurent and Gord Dwyer was the contact was “involuntary,” and that Raanta’s feet were in the crease, but his head was outside of the crease. Almost the exact same play happened to the Rangers back on Feb. 21, 2016, when Oscar Lindberg made contact with Red Wings’ goalie Jimmy Howard and Kevin Hayes scored. But after that play was reviewed, the goal was overturned.
Though that “head out of the crease” is a new explanation for many, former Rangers goalie Marty Biron defended the fact it was interference, despite the officials’ never-ending inconsistencies.
“When a goalie is going to be at the top of his crease and the screen is close but outside the crease, both players have a right to the ice,” Biron texted The Post on Friday. “I think it’s the goalie’s responsibility to keep a gap between he and the screen. A goalie will always tend to go a bit forward when going to the butterfly, and without that gap you will get contact, even with a standing-still screen.
“If the player comes in the crease, then it would be no goal. But like this one, he stayed outside the blue.”
Goalie Brandon Halverson was sent back to ECHL Greenville on Friday after he was forced into backup duty for Raanta on Thursday. Regular starter Henrik Lundqvist had been sidelined with what seems like a minor lowerbody injury, and it’s uncertain if he’ll be ready to practice on Saturday or another emergency call-up will be made, which would likely be Magnus Hellberg from AHL Hartford.
Needless to say, the Rangers are going to be over-cautious with any injury bothering Lundqvist.