Habs Spoil Datsyuk Return With an Assist to the Ref

It was a great game by two potential playoff opponents that featured elite offensive talent stonewalled by two of the leagues best goaltenders. The Red Wings looked good early, but were unable to capitalize on a number of power play opportunities. While I was encouraged by the chances created on PP, it only counts if it goes in the net. The same can be said of the Kid line, who even with the addition of Nyquist was unable to burry any of the many chances they created. A great individual effort and a fortuitous bounce by Z gave the Wings a 1-0 lead. It looked like the Wings had scored another off a beautiful play from both Z and Datsyuk, but it was waved off due to incidental contact which I will discuss later. The Habs would score late as Galchenyuk found a loose puck and wrapped it in, then steal the 2nd point when Desharnais snuck a rebound in the short side a minute into overtime.

The elephant in the room was the officiating of the game and the call eliminating the Datsyuk goal. First and foremost I felt that the officiating was pretty poor for both sides in this game. For the goal in particular the rules states that "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." Price is moving left to right tracking Datsyuk when he reaches Abby who is just inside the crease. Upon reach Abby, Price moves into the contact despite Pavel already attempting to spin back to the opposite side. While Price may or may not need that space to make the save he in essence gives up on the play by simply falling into Abby. It is the final aspect of it that make the call egregious, he may very well have been able to make the save despite Abby's location but he pulled the goaltending equivalent of diving and waited for the officials to bail him out.

The blame falls equally on Price, the officials and the league. Price is obvious, he dove and put the officials in an impossible situation daring them to allow that goal in Montreal. That said the official still allowed Price to get away with it, and it is the equivalent of the NHL pre the recent crackdown on diving. Finally, the league ruling does not allow the call to be reviewed. In this play the official was on the wrong side of the net to properly see what was happening and as a result a bad situation was made worse. Of course the rule is a judgement call, but then why are we forcing the officials to make judgement calls with only one, potentially bad, viewing of the play at full speed.

We are only six games into the season and the Wings have already lost at least two points due to what  I would consider questionable calls. While I personally feel the Red Wings were wrongly hurt by both, I recognize there is the potential that I'm wrong and the officials got both right. For this reason I blame the league for not allowing these calls the proper review. It is one thing for the Wings to lose after  the league reviewing the plays and saying it stays as called on the ice, but the Wings are losing without the chance of an appeal. The refs are humans and they make mistakes, at least give them the chance to fix it before it hurts someone else.