Wings end winning streak, lose to Dallas 3-1

by joehass on Nov 18, 2009 9:43 PM CST in Game Recaps Comment 5 comments

You know it's not your night when a goal is disallowed because of a whistle that blew a full second after the puck went into the net.

Brad May's third-period shot sat in the net, but Dennis LaRue ruled that the whistle intended to blow prior to the puck. Instead of a tie game, it remained 2-1, and the Stars put one more goal on the board to end the Detroit Red Wings three-game winning streak.

Alex Auld stopped 32 of 33 shots for Dallas, who played a solid game tonight, taking advantage by going 2-for-5 with the man advantage.

The Stars jumped out to the lead with a Mike Ribero goal that was intended to be a crossing pass. Instead, Jonathan Ericsson, who was on his stomach, swung his stick back, only to deflect the puck past Jimmy Howard.

Just under four minutes into the second period, Matt Niskanen took a pass from Brad Richards and fired a knuckle shot that Howard couldn't react to, to make it 2-0.

But a couple minutes later, Henrik Zetterberg kept his torrid pace going, as Ville Leino's pass set him up and with Richards draped over him, Zetterburg buried it to cut the lead to one.

Between those two goals, May and Krystofer Barch got together for a doozy of a fight: their fifth fight in the past three years. The two of them put on a show that included switching hands mid-fight when they both became tired. In fact, May appeared to deliberately change helmets just before the fight, going from one with a visor to one without.

With 13:36 left in the third, Detroit brought the puck out from behind the net. Justin Abdelkader passed the puck to May. May put a backhand shot from about 10 feet out onto Auld, who drew a whistle with a stop. But Auld hadn't stopped it: he trapped it against the side of the net with the puck very clearly over the line. The Red Wings celebrated as if they had scored a goal.

However, Dennis LaRue ruled that he intended to blow the whistle when the Auld made the stop, marking the play dead. Despite a call from the NHL Operations Center in Toronto, LaRue stuck to his ruling, and the goal did not count.

A few minutes later, with Jonathan Ericsson in the penalty box, Loui Eriksson took a pass from James Neal in front of the net. Howard was overcommitted to the play near Eriksson, and couldn't skate over in time to make the stop.

Howard would end up making 29 saves. The Wings play next on Friday against the Florida Panthers.

Player of the Game: Henrik Zetterberg. And we'll keep making him the player of the game until informed otherwise.

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Please explain the line, "Despite a call from the "NHL Operations Center"...

Did the Operations center rule otherwise? Is their decision supposed to always supercede the ref’s judgement, or is there wiggle room?

The way you set up the sentence, it makes it sound like Toronto said one thing, but LaRue had the final word, of no goal.

Either way, it sounds like he made a horrible call.

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by ahtrap on Nov 19, 2009 3:57 AM CST reply actions

One second??

More like 3 or probably 4 seconds elapsed between the goal and the whistle. My guess is that there was a failure of communication between Toronto and Lerue. Lerue believed the whistle went before the puck crossed the line, a fact EASILY overturnable by Toronto. I think somewhere that was lost in translation. Toronto probably ASSumed that he was talking about intent to blow the whistle, in which case the goal shouldn’t count. But obviously that wasn’t the case. Lerue actually announced that the whistle physically blew before the puck was in. Obviously that was false. If the NHL is going to have replay, then they need the on ice officials to see the replays of the plays in question ala the NFL. That way they will know how big of a fool they will look like if they blow a play. That blown call was COMPLETELY avoidable if Lerue would have just manned up to the mistake. Now he looks like the biggest idiot in the world.

That is the only explanation I can come up with to describe how this could have happened.

by dewman8810 on Nov 19, 2009 9:04 AM CST reply actions

Ew

Auld should have made the save
May should have elevated the puck more
The referee should have been in at least as good of a position to see what happened as the players

I think this was the worst called game I’ve seen this season. Eight penalties in the second period in a game between two of the five least penalized teams in the league (third and fifth)? That game was tied with the Avalanche/Oilers (twelfth and thirteenth) game for most penalized (quantitatively) of the night (Stortini got an instigator and misconduct). And most of the calls were made away from the play.

SBN is sucking right now. Preview is slow and 3 proxy errors in a row.

by bleep bloop on Nov 19, 2009 10:02 AM CST reply actions

Ew

Auld should have made the save
May should have elevated the puck more
The referee should have been in at least as good of a position to see what happened as the players

SBN is sucking right now. Preview is slow and 3 proxy errors in a row.

by bleep bloop on Nov 19, 2009 10:03 AM CST reply actions

LaRue must be buds with Watson

What a joke of officiating…as others stated the 3rd and 5th least penalized teams and he hands out 8 penalties in one period? And then of course ya have the infamous “intent to blow the whistle” call….must be the NHL ref’s equivalent to the “tuck rule” back in Foxboro years ago. They need to have a replay booth down on the ice with audio so this jerk can be proven wrong and get the call right the first time. I say suspend this ref without pay for the month and make that the precedent for terribly bad blown calls like this. May should of just KO’d this moron.

by Jimbo5203 on Nov 20, 2009 7:45 AM CST reply actions