There’s a lot to be unhappy about with the way the Red Wings lost their Valentine’s Day game against the WInnipeg Jets. For the most part, there are a ton of Red Wings mistakes to hang onto when we’re looking for reasons why Detroit couldn’t get two points against a Western Conference wild card squad. We’ve also got a few referee errors to throw into the mix of dissatisfaction (put as much weight on whichever excuses you want; I’m not here to judge).
What I’m not sure about is whether there was a referee error in a non-call that ended up becoming a Jets goal. You’ll see in the video above what I’m talking about.
Check out the carom that the puck takes off the boards after Bryan Little plays it around Luke Glendening. It looks like the puck is hitting off the inside of the door of the Jets’ bench and then bouncing back into the surface of play. Heck, you can even see that part of the reason Kyle Quincey finds himself flat-footed against Tyler Myers rushing in is that his first reaction to this bounce is to raise his hand to tell the officials to blow this play down.
Here, I giffed it for us to watch.
So it looks like Quincey believes that this play should be whistled dead. Unfotunately the rulebook is a little vague. I went to rule 85.1 in regards to the puck going out of bound and this is what it says.
The highlighted part is there just as a reminder that my question about this is purely rule-based and not excuse-making for a Wings’ game that I’m still mad about the team losing.
So we know that if the puck “enters the players’ bench through an open bench door”, it’s a whistle. What we have to assume based on the whistle not going here is that the inside of the door counts as an extension of the boards or that the referee simply missed this call.
On the one hand, I can see arguments for both. This isn’t any different than the puck taking a weird bounce off the stanchion or the zamboni door. Random weird things happen in hockey. On the other hand, I’m not sure it’s ok to have a part of the rink where a player bench has actual control over the shape of the boards should be given the same “meh it’s a random fluke” treatment as other areas.
What do you think? Should this play have been whistled down?
