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“Too many men” for Sharks not a big deal

Image (1) Sharks-thumb-200x300-7612.jpg for post 1439

There’s a screencap making the rounds today that shows seven men on the ice for the Sharks at the moment when Patrick Marleau was scoring the winning goal in overtime last night against the Detroit Red Wings. Here’s a link to the screencap, courtesy of Greg Wyshynski.

What it shows is two Sharks players looking down the ice near the bench, as their teammates jump on the ice during a line change. The play is far down the ice with Joe Thornton already making the pass across to Marleau. Is this technically “too many men on the ice” for the Sharks? Technically, yes but it’s far from the egregious penalty that some may point it out to be.

This line change is really no different than any others you see throughout a game, especially with the play on the other end of the ice. Is it a bit of a lazy change, especially with the two off-going players gazing down the ice? Of course it is, but the change had absolutely no bearing on the play that happened.

The good news is that from what I’ve seen, the majority of Wings fans are saying that the game was not lost on this one “missed call”. Still, I’m almost 90% certain this wouldn’t have been brought up if it didn’t happen to the Red Wings.