Reviewing the Call

Great idea to get a bunch of very good opinions (and ours) on the matter. This was one of the worst calls I may have ever seen in sports, all stemming from one of the worst rules in sports. It’s essentially allowing any ref a chance to cop out for missing a call and saying, “well I meant to call this!” Part of me wishes I would have let myself cool off, like you did, but another part of me could not wait to go off… I think I’m calm now, but thinking about it gets me fired up again….
:)

My main problem with this series is the inconsistency in officiating and how it has worked to the Ducks advantage every game, even the one they lost.

I guess I have to dispute Casey’s point here — you can certainly handpick your moments, and Wings definitely got robbed hard on the play in question late last night — but I don’t know that there’s the need to pretend that every call has gone Anaheim’s way. They’ve still had to kill more penalties than the Wings, including a major (though I suppose everybody wants a different margin there), they still went 70 minutes in G2 without a power play, and like it or not, there have been missed calls on both sides of the puck.

I guess we’re four years into the new officiating though, and I’m not sure anybody’s ever referred to it as “consistent”. Sometimes games will be close enough that a rough call decides them (we probably shouldn’t pretend this is the first), and last night was an example — heck there’s been three examples in this series thus far.

Tragic? For sure. Wrong call? Absolutely. Are the refs out to screw Detroit? I doubt it — there’d be better ways of accomplishing that.

I, being stuck in my hotel room with a client meeting the Wednesday morning, caught only the highlight reel on ESPNEWS this morning.

First, the relevant rule (32.2):

As there is a human factor involved in blowing the whistle to stop play, the Referee may deem the play to be stopped slightly prior to the whistle actually being blown. The fact that the puck may come loose or cross the goal line prior to the sound of the whistle has no bearing if the Referee has ruled that the play had been stopped prior to this happening.

So it clearly wasn’t a bad call according to the rules, assuming Tim Peel lost sight of the puck (which, given the angle he was at, I believe he did).

The next question is was he in the right position given the nature of the play. In a situation where the play is in front of the net, the proper position of the official is to be directly behind the net. Since the play was pretty bang-bang, he was moving towards the back of the net, but he wasn’t there when he blew the whistle.

Should he have waited the extra moment? That’s debatable. It’s ingrained in officials to stop play when you lose sight of the puck, and, from his position, it did. That being said, I’ve believed for a long time that officials are too quick to blow the whistle. It’s easy to go back and stop play earlier. It’s impossible to declare what would have happened had the whistle not blown.

I am more than happy to hear arguments on two points: changing rule 32.2 so that the whistle is the definitive moment, not when the official thought the whistle should’ve blown, and using audio within the video replay to determine when the whistle sounded.

Otherwise, I’m going to say it was a good call. Those are the breaks, kids. Perhaps next time you ought to try to score more than one goal.

For the sake of argument, if the NHL was out to screw Detroit in this series, how would they do it?

Say, for example, you are the NHL, and you have one fan base that will tune into a game of grab-apple-pie played at 1:30 a.m. if they call it hockey, and another that has generally heard of the sport maybe once from some guy they were humoring while trying to sell their movie script. You need to maximize your revenue. One fan base is giving you all it’s got; another has tons of room for growth if you give them enough wins.

That’s a VERY long way from there actually being a conspiracy, but there is motive. And there are rumors that — nothing as concrete and well-documented as the star assistance and blowout repression in the NBA — but rumors that refs are rewarded for giving some teams the benefit of the doubt, and keeping the score closer than it should be. The last such rumor came, I believe, just last year, when it was said the NHL tried t

So there’s motive and means to a conspiracy against the Wings. But it stops there.

Why do we get duked more than other teams? Because we’re there. We score more goals, so it stands to reason that, at most, one goal out of every series will be disallowed for — I dunno — an intent to blow a whistle the millisecond the puck enters the crease; or for putting a a Swedish man’s rump too close to a goalie; or because the puck barely grazed a skate which, had it actually been kicking, would have misdirected the puck away from the goal anyway.

And we get duked more by the interference calls because our style of hockey is best opposed with a lot of interference. I’m not talking about the ticky-tack crap. I’m talking about using the trap to funnel forwards to the boards, then when they dump the puck in, hold them up until the blueliners sweep it away. It’s illegal, sure, but when it’s not being called (like last night) it’s a sure-fire way for a big, lumbering, cheap-ass bunch of goon-hounds to stop the smallish Wings.

So no conspiracy. Just the NHL, one arbitrary and capricious rule that stuck the league in the foot last night, and a lot of young referees still getting used to a 2-man system, and a lot of teams that know our kryptonite and will be happy to use it if they can. At least, that takes care of the circumstantial evidence. As for the motive, if it does anything, our guaranteed fandom simply takes away any market effect we might otherwise have on the league, and convincing it to improve itself. I’m not ready to turn my back on the Wings just so the NHL will take our inordinate vulnerability to its failures seriously. So instead, we suffer.

-Deprived (sleep and goal) in Detroit

The last such rumor came, I believe, just last year, when it was said the NHL tried t

Meant to delete that. Was about one of the Penguins games but I couldn’t find the old link to back me up.

This is Jonas Hiller:

This is a hockey puck:

I don’t know how somebody could confuse the two. Yet somehow:

    I was at this game and and watched this horrible rule in affect. I was sitting in the second row next to the penalty box there as a guest of my long time friend Earl sleek( blogger for the Ducks on Battle of California). I had a clear vision of the puck just sitting in the crease waiting to be tapped home for what seemed like a lifetime. I have never seen a rule in any sport that allows negation of a score based on intent by a referee to blow his whistle. I watched and interview before the game on NHL Network with Steven Walkhom VP and director of officiating and one thing that stuck in my head(was regarding Video replay) but it stands true as an overall comment when he said “,it’s about getting things right.” If the NHL has been trying to make sure they get calls right on the ice why did the call go this way. Gary get with your rules committee and change this rule, If you want to compensate human error by stating, “I intended to blow my whistle earlier.” then you need to allow for human correction. All that needed to be said by the referee was "I intended to blow my whistle earlier but it would have been the wrong call since the whistle was blown after the puck crossed the goaline and didn’t interfere with the play, Goal stands.

 I am not here to say that the Redwings would have won the game in overtime but who knows it could have given them the momentum swing they needed. This decision/ rule robbed the Redwings of a chance to win and robbed fans of more great hockey. You want to promote the NHL you have to consider all the things that may subtract from fan enjoyment, and No fan wants to feel that the team they root for has been cheated. Walking out of the stadium after a loss you want to feel like your team played there best you saw a great game, it just wasn’t your teams night. I love this game and I really feel that the ref’s try there best to get things right but it hurts to see pivotal games being decided by calls based on some nonsense rule instead of common sense and fact.

That follow the NFL as well this reminded me of Ed Hochuli and the whole “Hochuli-gate” at the beginning of the year. Hochuli blew the whistle as Denver (now Chicago) QB Jay Cutler fumbled the ball on a crucial play. San Diego recovered the ball but was not given possession because of the early whistle. San Diego then gave up a touchdown and a two point conversion to lose the game. The only bit of vindication for the Chargers? They beat Denver in the season finale and made the playoffs. Maybe something like this is in store for the Wings.