Well, for six teams, the playoffs are over. That Wild are in, the Habs are in. Blues are out, Senators are out. I didn’t watch the Wild game which was on in the afternoon as 4-1 games aren’t always interesting.
However, I did watch the Senators-Habs contest and while it was mostly good, the outcome, and the way it came about, disappointed me.
While the final score was 2-0, the second Montreal goal was an empty net goal, scored with a second left in the game (actually .03 seconds).
While Ottawa was kept off the scoresheet… improbably for the first time in the entire season, they did score a goal which an out of position referee Chris Lee disallowed.
The referee was behind the net to Price’s left. The play was on Price’s right. Mark Borowiecki took a shot which Price saved but he left a rebound which Gabriel Pageau shoved into the net. The referee apparently assumed that Price had not only made the save but had either caught the puck or had it under his control. With it out of his sight, he whistled the play dead a fraction of a second before Pageau scored.
Photo: Postmedia
I’m not sure what you can do in such a situation where the referee’s error makes such a difference in the game. Worse, the officials had been letting the players run the goalies all night until this play.
Kudos to the Senators and Dave Cameron for taking such a hit with such grace. While shots on goal are often a flaky measurement, it’s still worth noting that the first period of the game had both teams tied at 13 shots apiece. Over the last two periods, Ottawa outshot Montreal 30-7. If the referee had done his job, Montreal wouldn’t have been able to forego any offensive effort and it would have been a much different game.
There was a strange, painful moment after the play when the ref, with another of the officials nearby, stood behind the Montreal goal, looking down at the ice through the mesh, knowing that he had made a grievous error.
As an aside, the NHL.com site really underplays the disallowed goal. The primary article on the game never mentions the play at all. The secondary article drily mentions, in the second last paragraph, that, “…The play had been blown dead.” The Montreal Gazette also underplays the ‘disallowed’ goal. The Ottawa Citizen probably gave it the most accurate coverage.
I Canicus 
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