Canucks & Beyond
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Canucks, Rangers and the Disallowed Goal
by Alanah McGinley on 11/20/08 at 03:00 PM ET
Comments (13)
Tonight: Canucks at the Wild
- Backup goalie Curtis Sanford should get a chance to relive the days when he used to play hockey.
- Wild coach Jacques Lemaire is liable to get defensive. Again.
I’m looking forward to it, but I’m still a bit stuck on last night’s game against the NY Rangers—particularly that disallowed goal the Canucks scored (theoretically) in the second period.
When the NHL video gurus in Toronto decide that a goal isn’t a goal, I can usually see the logic in their call. There appears to be some obscurity in the footage, something which makes it inconclusive. But last night, when Sami Salo “scored” on Henrik Lundqvist in the second period, I didn’t see any such ambivalence. Unless something strange was going on with shadow puppets, the projected curvature of the earth, or maybe the impact of the moon on gravitational pull affecting the speed of light, etc… that looked very much like a goal to me.
I was confused enough that I wrote to Colin Campbell himself for more info and he was good enough to respond with the explanation: “The puck has to be conclusively across the goal line and when the referee calls it no goal we have to prove beyond doubt the puck is in.”
Fair enough, and I know he’s right, but geez...it sure looked “beyond a doubt” from where I was sitting. Maybe I’m the only one? No one else I’ve read seems to question it.
I realize none of this matters much given the 6-3 final score—and of course I’m victim to my own Canucks fan bias even when I try to filter it—but the ruling still baffles me.
P.S. I captured the video last night and grabbed these stills from it. None are enhanced at all—just straight screenshots from the TSN broadcast.
Update: Sorry—One more shot I should have included… this is a zoom in of Frame #3:
Update 2:35pm PT
After considering all the comments here and rethinking this whole thing, I revise my opinion—I think the NHL made the right call. However, I’m still convinced it was a goal (theoretically)… just one that couldn’t be allowed. Sarah (in the comments below) says it better than I do:
I think that it almost certainly did go the whole way over the line, because as Alanah said [in another comment] when you last see it clearly, just as it is about to clear the line, it is still moving fast and the defenseman’s stick hasn’t got to it yet. But unfortunately you never SEE it going over because his stick gets in the way. So I think they made the right call, they didn’t say it wasn’t a goal, just that they couldn’t prove that it was.
Ah well. I think it was worth some analysis, anyway. Keeps me from getting bitter. 
Filed in: vancouver canucks | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Tags: goal+reviews, new+york+rangers,
Comments
Looks to me like the puck is still slightly on the line in Frame 3. The rule is completely over the line, yes? I think they usually talk about seeing the white of the ice between the puck and line…
Posted by Ben from Buffalo, NY on 11/20/08 at 03:09 PM ET
I don’t see any white between the puck and the goal line. NHL got it right.
Posted by Navarath on 11/20/08 at 03:12 PM ET
LOL - the zoom shot of that still CLEARLY shows that the puck is partly on the line.
Unless the pucks up in Vancouver are some sort of weird shaped object (w/ one flat side) 
Posted by Declan from NJ on 11/20/08 at 03:13 PM ET
I just added a zoom in of the third frame (it was TSN’s broadcast).
The ruling could indeed have been the right call. I guess I just struggle with it because of the fact that you see the puck in motion at a decent speed at that point and yet the NYR stick still hasn’t caught the puck yet… But I suppose that’s also a trick your mind plays, anticipating the puck’s movement.
Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 11/20/08 at 03:14 PM ET
“Unless the pucks up in Vancouver are some sort of weird shaped object (w/ one flat side) ”
Smartass.
Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 11/20/08 at 03:26 PM ET
These crazy incidents just never stop. Why just a few games ago, Spezza thought he had a goal on Carolina’s Leighton, but the camera showed no puck in the net, just the puck being batted in towards the net, and winding up between his back and his arm, his back being across the goal line and his arm clearly in the net, and of course his armpit blocking the overhead camera. Then he swats it out between his legs.
They should start putting crazy GPS or RF systems in place. Put a locator in the puck, one in each corner of the net so you know where in the net hole the puck is going, and one on the rear support post of the net, so you know whether it’s inside or outside the net, based on its position in the opening with that extra depth.
Of course, the League only wants tech-savvy fans and media, not games. I wonder how many games in the NFL, MLB, and NBA are not televised, compared to how many of the NHL’s 1230.
Posted by SENShobo from Waterloo, ON on 11/20/08 at 03:28 PM ET
Wow, such lame comments about odd shaped Canadian pucks and bad camera feeds. The fact of the matter is, that view that Alanah shows is a really good one. It shows everything. It is close...very close. And it’s a good arguement. Heck, I’ve seen goals get counted when the ref’’s 1st call no goal, even though you can’t see the puck go over the line at all. So Alanah has a good arguement. But according to rules, it didn’t count. Watching the game, I thought it looked in to me......now I see the stills, not a goal. Nice “Willy Mitchell save” by what ever Ranger that was!
Posted by Buffdaddydarren from Saskatoon on 11/20/08 at 03:48 PM ET
When I saw the play live on MSG, I thought it was (unfortunately) a goal. But they couldn’t find an angle that showed definitively that the entire puck crossed the line, so there you are. As it happens, it didn’t affect the outcome at all.
Posted by alice on 11/20/08 at 04:18 PM ET
Lame comments?
The still shots are perfect. But, they prove the opposite of what Alanah is crying foul about.
The odd shaped puck comment was obviously a joke. Meaning the only way that based on those pictures, the puck was entirely over the line, was if one side of the puck was flat and therefore still not sitting on the goal line.
Learn how to take a joke!
Posted by Declan from NJ on 11/20/08 at 04:47 PM ET
from watching last night, I think that it almost certainly did go the whole way over the line, because as Alanah said, when you last see it clearly, just as it is about to clear the line, it is still moving fast and the defenseman’s stick hasn’t got to it yet. But unfortunately you never SEE it going over because his stick gets in the way. So I think they made the right call, they didn’t say it wasn’t a goal, just that they couldn’t prove that it was. And hey, we got another one a few moments later, so I can live with it. If it had cost us the game, I might not be so mellow :D
Posted by Sarah from England on 11/20/08 at 05:24 PM ET
Thanks for all your thoughts on this, everyone. I updated the post at the bottom with my revised opinion.
You all helped me think it through a bit more logically, to be honest. Sometimes the obvious is difficult to see without some outside input.
Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 11/20/08 at 05:40 PM ET
OK, on the MSG feed, you could see something black go all the way in the net (by quite a few inches)...and since Rozsival’s stick is completely covered in white tape, I assumed that it was the puck. Unfortunately, the video was very, very fuzzy. I thought the NHL was installing HD cameras over the goals?
Posted by K24 from NYC on 11/20/08 at 07:15 PM ET
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About Canucks & Beyond
Alanah McGinley has been blogging hockey since 2003, sharing opinions, rants and not-so-deep thoughts with anyone who will listen. In addition to writing Canucks & Beyond and helping manage Kukla’s Korner, Alanah is one of the founders and co-hosts of The Crazy Canucks Podcast, as featured at Canucks.com.
She has contributed pieces to FoxSports.com and the New York Times Slapshot blog, as well as other stray destinations in cyberspace.
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Not sure what video replay you were shown (probably on the TSN feed) but the MSG feed zoomed in and it was pretty clear that the puck probably didn’t fully cross the line. Even that 3rd image that you show above, the edge of the puck is still clearly on the line. The one legit shot that they showed last night that probably could’ve determined if it actually went over the line was ruined because a camera flash brightened up the whole screen, so that everything looked bright white.
The NHL got it right, there was no replay that showed it was a goal.
From the replay I saw last night, I’d go as far as saying that even if the ref on the ice called it a goal, the replays that we were shown would’ve disallowed it conclusively.
Posted by Declan from NJ on 11/20/08 at 03:08 PM ET