The Penguins were lucky to be trailing by just one goal after the first period of their 4-1 loss to the Maple Leafs on Saturday at PPG Paints Arena.
Toronto was dominant from the first shift.
The Penguins had a better start to the middle frame and Rickard Rakell managed to put the puck in the back of the net -- only for it to be immediately waived off.
It's pretty clear that the goal shouldn't have counted, but the reason why seems to be a point of confusion.
Maple Leafs goaltender Erik Kallgren made the initial save on a shot from some distance. The puck then trickled through his pads and popped out behind him and was loose. The officials apparently having lost sight of the puck, blew their whistle just after the puck popped out. Rakell followed the loose puck and put it in the back of the net. The goal horn briefly went off, but officials waived the goal off right after it went in:
The officials conferred at the scorers table, and after a review gave out a "no goal" ruling because "the puck was deemed dead as there was not a continuous motion of the shot. The whistle was blown to kill the play.”
I asked Rakell for his view of what happened and the explanation received from the officials.
"I mean, I heard the whistle before I shot the puck in, but I saw it was loose the whole time," he said. "So the referee told me if the puck was still in motion, the goal would have counted. But it stopped, they had to call it off."
The NHL puts out brief releases with explanations for every disallowed goal. The release for this goal didn't mention anything about continuous motion like the explanation received in-arena, though.
"The Referee informed the Situation Room that he had deemed the play dead when he lost sight of the puck behind Erik Kallgren," it read.
So ... what happened?
There's a line in the official rulebook that explains.
In Section 5 of the rulebook -- the section on officiating -- Rule 37.3 lists the 10 different goal situations (yes, there are 10!) that are subject to video review by the league's Situation Room. The one that is applicable in this situation is No. 9:
Puck entering the net as the culmination of a continuous play where the result of the play was unaffected by any whistle blown by the Referee upon his losing sight of the puck
What that means is that even though the official lost sight of the puck and blew the whistle, it doesn't necessarily mean that a puck that crosses the line afterward automatically doesn't count. But if the official does mistakenly blow a play dead, and the puck crosses the goal line on its own and not a result of anything that happened after the whistle, it could count.
So had the puck popped out of Kallgren's pads, the official blew his whistle, and the puck continued on its own into the net, that would have been a goal. But Rakell obviously knocked it in after the whistle, which means it wasn't a goal.
Still ... the officials losing sight of the puck did put the Penguins in a bad spot there. If the officials saw that Kallgren didn't have the puck and didn't blow the play dead, then that's a live puck sitting there in the crease and Rakell can obviously knock it in for a goal. There's definitely a case to be made that the whistle came pretty quick.
Even if the whistle wasn't an issue, there's a decent chance that the goal would have been called back anyway for goaltender interference. It's tough to say for sure, given how inconsistent it seems goaltender interference is called around the league. But Rule 69.7 says that in cases "where a goalkeeper and attacking player(s) are simultaneously attempting to play a loose puck, whether inside or outside the crease, incidental contact with the goalkeeper will be permitted." The rulebook also says that goals would be disallowed if the contact "results in an impairment of the goalkeeper’s ability to defend his goal." I'm not sure how much that applies here, given that what prevented Kallgren from defending the goal was that he mistakenly thought he had the puck.
It's a lot of "what ifs?" for a play that could have had a significant impact on the game when the score was still close.
Mike Sullivan was asked afterward for his take on the play.
"Obviously, the puck is loose, the referees didn't see it," Sullivan said. "You'd hope they would see it and not blow the whistle. But that's their call, they don't see it, they've got to blow the whistle. That's how it was."
Jake Guentzel said afterward that he's still not sure what happened on the play.
"It is what it is," he said. "They call it that way and you just have to keep moving on and maybe get some momentum and you get chances, but it's a tough one. But the ref saw it how he did."
