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Referees cause confusion after disallowed goal

I’m not here to say that a disallowed goal was the ultimate doom for the Flyers, but there’s no doubt it was the turning point in the game. Simon Gagne’s goal would have put the Flyers ahead 2-1, in a game they were playing fairly well in and one they desperately needed to stop sliding down the Eastern Conference standings. Instead, the officials made perhaps the worst goal-reversal calls I’ve ever seen and the Flyers lost 4-1.

To set the table for this debate: The Flyers skated into the zone on a three-on-two, and looked to have a goal when Simon Gagne slid a rebound past a sprawling Marc-Andre Fleury, who had come well out of his crease to make the save on the initial shot. Fleury had been knocked over by Ville Leino on the play, and referee Dan Marouelli immediately called it a good goal, with no hesitation. There was also no penalty called on the play.

Then, after a lengthy discussion Marouelli made this call: “The goal has been disallowed due to incidental contact with the goaltender. No penalty, no goal.”

Umm, what?

We break down this travesty of officiating after the jump.

To start with, here’s the excerpt from the NHL rule book on goaltender interference. Rule 69.1:

Goals should be disallowed only if: (1) an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal; or (2) an attacking player initiates intentional or deliberate contact with a goalkeeper, inside or outside of his goal crease. Incidental contact with a goalkeeper will be permitted, and resulting goals allowed, when such contact is initiated outside of the goal crease, provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such contact.

The play is not reviewable, per the rule. It is left completely up to the officials on the ice.

First off, it’s more than obvious that contact is made outside of the crease. See below:

Image (1) NoGoal1-thumb-250x159-8019.jpg for post 536

So contact is made outside of the crease, so the first part of the rule does not apply. What about the intentional part of the rule? Was Ville Leino’s contact intentional or deliberate?

Image (2) NoGoal2-thumb-250x160-8022.jpg for post 536

Above, you can see how Leino is putting on the brakes as he overskates the puck. You can see the puck at his feet, and how he’s turning his head to look at MAF.

From a different angle (below), you can see that Leino has not been able to stop and sees he’s about to collide with Fleury. Is this intentional? Tough to say.

Image (3) NoGoal3-thumb-250x159-8025.jpg for post 536

But it doesn’t matter, because according to the referees the contact was incidental.

“The goal has been disallowed due to incidental contact with the goaltender. No penalty, no goal.”

So if the contact was incidental, and outside of the crease, the goal should be allowed according to NHL rules. Simon Gagne is even more confused, especially after talking with Marouelli after the play:

“At first, he called it a goal. After reviewing the play on the scorebard he changed his mind that we had somebody on their goalie. That’s the first time I’ve seen that,” said Gagne.

“I asked him, ‘are you allowed to look at the scoreboard?’ He said I would be happy if the same thing happened to us.”

If this is true, if Marouelli looked at the scoreboard to overturn a call he previously made, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the play not being open for video review? And if the contact was deemed to be such that a goal should be disallowed, shouldn’t a penalty have been called. If he’s confused about the ruling on the play, he can always call Toronto to get clarification on how such a play should be called.

You can’t take a goal away for incidental contact outside of the crease. There’s just nothing in the rules that call for it.