Updated 3:30pm EDT:
Call
Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.
The NHL is upholding a referee’s call on a “phantom goal”.
CBC’s Elliotte Friedman spoke with NHL Senior Vice-President of Hockey Operations Mike Murphy about the controversial goal that would have given the Sharks a 5-4 OT victory over Buffalo. No goal was called, nor was the play reviewed. Play resumed and the two teams played to a shootout, which the Sabres won 5-4.
Here’s the Tommy Wingels “goal” that caused
Thanks, CSN Bay Area
The NHL uses Rule 78.5 governs these types of situations." If the referee intends to blow his whistle to stop the play, that supersedes everythin”.
Murphy told Friedman:
"We have in a week two, three or four plays when the puck goes in the net as the whistle goes. What we look for is how strong a referee's signal is, how committed he is to his call.
"We don't want to undermine the referee... have people watching saying, 'See, see, see, they don't agree,' so before we put him on the headset we're looking to see how strong he is on his call."
Murphy told Friedman that he saw the play as follows:
"Leggo waves it off when the puck hits the post and starts to come to the net as a scramble develops. [In the NHL's video review room in Toronto] we're still looking at the puck off the post, then see the play with Leggo approaching net, putting the whistle in his mouth and he waves aggressively.
"The optics would have been better if we got him to put on the headset and asked what he was seeing... We spoke after the game, I told him it did go in, we probably would get some pushback and should have gotten him over [to the headset] for the optics of the review."
"Had we called a goal against Buffalo it would have been wrong, because it shouldn't have been a goal," he said. "We should have done the headsets, because any controversy would have died. This type of play is not a rarity."
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Updated 1:42pm:
The Edmonton Oilers are going to trade super sophomore
Nail Yakupov.
True of false?
Today, his head coach Dallas Eakins had a heart to heart chat with the Russian scoring machine. Eakins told Yakupov that he's not going to be traded.
Was Eakins truly pumping the kid's tires, or, was he genuinely serious?
Does Oilers GM Craig MacTavish share the same sentiments as Eakins?
The Oilers have already committed fat money and long term deals to their Big # forwards Hall, Eberle, and RNH. Will they be extending Yakupov to a similar deal, or, will the Oilers be flipping him in a trade for a starting goalie and a top four D-man?
Just because he's not being shopped today doesn't mean that he won't be shopped tomorrow, or the next day.
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Updated 12:31 pm EDT:
Have I told you lately that the NHL Department of Player Safety is a freakin joke?!
How is it possible that Boston Bruins D Dennis Seidenberg gets away with ripping off the head of Dallas Stars forward Vernon Fiddler with this disgusting head shot?
Listen to Bruins play by play cheerleader, Jack Edwards, glorify the head hit on Fiddler as he goes to his commercial break. Edwards is no dummy. He knows the game. He called it the way he saw it. Seidenberg rammed his elbow into the mouth area of Fiddler. Plain as day.
"He caught some head there, didn't he"?
Exactly, Jack. Head shot. Seidenberg's principle point of contact was Fiddler's head. Thats a Rule 48 violation.
Where's the justice?
How can we talk about the Seidenberg free pass without pointing out Chara's blatant head shot on San Jose forward Tommy Wingels?
Neither Seidenberg, nor Chara were issued appearance tickets with Shanahan for their egregious head hits on opponents.
Why not?
Is it because Peter Chiarelli and the Bruins have been branded as the victims of head hits as in the cases of Loui Eriksson, Patrice Bergeron, and Marc Savard? How could they perpetrate such acts when they are the innocent parties? In no way, shape, or form am I attempting to minimize the severity of the head hits to victims Eriksson, Bergeron, and Savard. There's no place in hockey for those types of ignorant head shots.
What I have a real problem with is the selective amnesia overtakes the minds of the NHL Department of Player Safety in matters and incidents that cast a negative light on the big, bad, Bruins. Are they exempt from supplemental discipline? Sure looks that way to me.
Its garbage.
If Kaleta, Scott, Tootoo, Cooke, or Lapierre were the perpetrators of the aforementioned hits, you better believe that there would be Hell to pay in the form of suspensions. Not the case with Seidenberg and Chara. They whistle while they work and keep skating.
Conflict of interest much?
RULE 48 violations. ALL DAY LONG!
Seidenberg will not face a disciplinary hearing for making his opponent's head the principle point of contact.
So Boston Typical.
Bruins players, like Chara, have crossed the line repeatedly this season, yet they are not being held to the same standards a"lower class' teams like the Buffalo Sabres, for example.
The Bruins, and to an exception the Flyers (see Ray Emery assault on Holtby) are the exceptions and not the rule. Or in Seidenberg's case, Rule 48.
Here's a refresher course for Shanny and his blind mice. Rule 48 is to be applied to all 30 teams, not just 27 or 28 of them.
Rule 48 - Illegal Check to the Head
48.1 Illegal Check to the Head – A hit resulting in contact with an opponent's head where the head is targeted and the principal point of contact is not permitted. However, in determining whether such a hit should have been permitted, the circumstances of the hit, including whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to or simultaneously with the hit or the head contact on an otherwise legal body check was avoidable, can be considered.
48.2 Minor Penalty - For violation of this rule, a minor penalty shall be assessed.
48.3 Major Penalty - There is no provision for a major penalty for this rule.
48.4 Game Misconduct Penalty – There is no provision for a major penalty for this rule.
48.5 Match Penalty - The Referee, at his discretion, may assess a match penalty if, in his judgment, the player attempted to or deliberately injured his opponent with an illegal check to the head.
If deemed appropriate, supplementary discipline can be applied by the Commissioner at his discretion.
48.6 Fines and Suspensions – Any player who incurs a total of two (2) game misconducts under this rule, in either regular League or playoff games, shall be suspended automatically for the next game his team plays. For each subsequent game misconduct penalty the automatic suspension shall be increased by one game.
If deemed appropriate, supplementary discipline can be applied by the Commissioner at his discretion (refer to Rule 28).
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have to hand it to Ryan Miller and the Buffalo Sabres.
They overcame huge odds against them by out-playing on of the best teams in the NHL in San Jose. Per usual, Ryan Miller was a beast, posting 47 saves on 51 shots, many from point blank range, to preserve the Buffalo 5-4 shootout win.
With the shootout win in San Jose, Ryan Miller now ties Henrik Lundqvist for the most shootout wins in NHL history with
45.
Look at this beauty to rob Logan Couture!
Early in the third period, Buffalo took a 3-1 lead, however, Tyler Kennedy and rookie Tomas Hertl wasted no time at all by squaring the score at 3-3.
Rather then break, the Sabres bended. They fought their way off the wall and kept working, rather than shutting down their efforts that earned them two, two-goal leads inside the Shark Tank.
Hank Tallinder saw something different from his team in San Jose. Something that he hasn’t seen much of from his team in the first 17 games of the season. He saw a refusal to lose.
"It's been a lot of that lately where we get one goal against and we kind of go like, 'Here we go again' and feel sorry for ourselves instead of being angry,'.
Thanks, sabres.com
In the end, the Sabres stunned the home fans with their aggressive 5-4 shootout win, snapping a four-game losing streak.
Cody Hodgson channeled the ghost of Thomas Vanek's shootout winners of the past and authored a sweet ending for his deserving team with a shootout winner of his own, when the boys needed it the most.
Weird not seeing Vanek on the ice for the Sabers in the shootout, wasn't it?
Lets not get too excited. Its only their third win in seventeen games. There is a metric ton of hard work left to do, however, the team should be commended for not bowing to an elite team, in their building. I love how Cody McCormick and Johan Larsson dropped the gloves and fought for their teammates in this game. When Tyler Kennedy cross-checked Ville Leino from behind into a pile of people on the wall, the 21 year old Larsson wasted no time at all grabbing Kennedy and punching him in the face a few time. I love that kid’s moxy!
“This was a fear of mine, that we'd be complacent and decide to play when we needed," Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. "That's exactly what happened. We were outworked and outdetailed for a large part of the game. We weren't nearly what we needed to be to play against anybody. We were flat and we didn't have a lot of energy.
"We played 10 minutes the way we wanted. The other 55 we weren't very good. That's as poorly as we've played all year."
Cody McCormick scored, had a spirited fight and earned the hard hat for his courageous, inspirational leadership in San Jose.
Thanks, sabres.com
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Were the Sharks screwed out of an OT GWG?
You make the call....
Thanks, CSN Bay Area
Its about time the Sabres didn't get screwed on a goal review.
Matters not. Sabres win.
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Ryan Miller improved his record to 7-1-1 vs. the Sharks in his career with a .932 save % and a 2.17 GAA.
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Drew Stafford has a goal and an assist and was +1 in 18:31 TOI.
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Tyler Ennis has a goal and an assist in 18:57 TOI
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Zemgus Girgensons recorded two assists for his first NHL multi-point game.
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The Sabres blocked 24 shots in San Jose. 51 shots actually hit Miller.
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Rasmus Ristolainen delivered 5 hits against the Sharks.
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Joe Pavelski was 22-5 in the faceoff circle for Sharks. That’s 81%. Sick!
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