Last night, I was very angry, and when I woke up this morning, I discovered that I was still angry, and that is because I hate the Devils very much. I guess some of you may have heard about this? The Rangers were down 1-0 until Anisimov scored a game-tying goal with 5 seconds left, except the goal was immediately waved off by official Dan O'Rourke due to Interference on the Goalkeeper. This was a terrible call, and I am angry about it, because it led directly to another loss to the Devils, and as I mentioned, I hate the Devils very much.
Let's take a look at the play.
Now, let's read the rules together.
NHL rulebook Table 18 (relevant to Rule 69, Interference on the Goalkeeper), Section 3 is for when "a player pushes, shoves, or fouls another player into the goalkeeper, who is in or out of the crease." I think it's pretty clear that's the right section. No one can think Volchenkov didn't at least push Gaborik. Even Volchenkov himself said "I maybe pushed him a little, but I didn't push so hard."
And so: The table tells us that the goal is allowed if "the attacking player, after having made a reasonable effort to avoid contact, makes contact with the goalkeeper at the time a goal is scored." It tells us the goal is disallowed if "the contact by the attacking player with the goalkeeper is other than incidental and the attacking player, in the judgment of the Referee, did not make a reasonable effort to avoid such contact at the time a goal is scored."
The contact was clearly other than incidental (you can watch as it causes fatso to roll back hilariously into his net), and the puck clearly went into the net, so the question comes down to this: in the judgement of the official, did Marian Gaborik make a reasonable effort to avoid contact?
Watch from about 0:23 to about 0:28 in the above video. To me, that angle makes things pretty clear. You see Gaborik coming toward the net and slowing up as he approaches it, and you see Volchenkov coming in behind him and pushing him into Prince Marty. Unfortunately, Dan O'Rourke saw things differently, and he made the split-second decision to wave off the goal and give Gaborik a goalie interference penalty. Dan O'Rourke was wrong.
Even more unfortunately, there was nothing anyone could do about Dan O'Rourke being wrong. Because goal-line reviews, pucks played with high-sticks, and distinct kicking motions are all required to go to the War Room in Toronto for review, but nothing else is even permitted to be reviewed. What?? Look, it's easy to demonize O'Rourke. He did his job incorrectly. But, like, his job is also very hard! Yes, Coach Tortorella and the rest of the Rangers would have been much happier if this could have gone to video review. But don't you think Dan O'Rourke would have been a little happier, as well?
Some people are calling for coaches' challenges in the NHL, a system under which a coach can, in the face of a particularly egregious or important call, challenge the on-ice ruling. And that's a potential solution. But here are some simpler ones: 1) Let officials choose to go back to the video for calls they're not sure about; 2) Force reviews for every potentially goal-changing call, not just a seemingly arbitrary subset of them. Holy shit, what easy rule changes those would be to make!
This league fined Coach Tortorella $30,000 for making a comment questioning the league's integrity in a press conference last month (an effect which has lasted, since last night his comment about the no-goal was "no comment"). You want to increase your league's integrity? Make sure, to the best of your ability, that the right decisions are made in games. Especially with respect to whether or not a goal is scored. Yes, all officiating is at least a little subjective. But this is your most important duty as a league: keeping the games as fair as you can keep them. (Note that this is subtly different from "make sure no coach talks about unfairness in the league.")
With all that said, the Rangers of course could have put themselves in a situation in which this no-goal doesn't matter, by playing three full periods last night instead of just the one. It shouldn't have come down to those 5 seconds; the officials shouldn't have had the chance to affect the outcome like that. That's on the Rangers, no doubt. And that's fixable as soon as tomorrow night, against the Lightning.
And now, here it is, your Moment of Zen:
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