Game 10 - Pens @ Leafs - Saturday October 29th, 2011 - 19:00 EST - 4-3 Win

[Stronger Than All]

Should we be worried the Habs and Sens have started winning?

 

[Propellertop]

Should we be worried the Habs and Sens have started winning?

No. I'll start worrying when we start losing AND they're winning.

 

[Kin]

Really?

Yes, really. It is not reasonable to expect a player to jump over another to avoid contact. It increases the risk of injury to Neal in an effort to save Gustavsson which is not required. Gus came at him, Neal didn't stop. There's no penalty there. Nobody else has said there should be one, the announcers didn't mention it. You're kind of on an island here.

 

[Oracle]

Actually Ralphy did. But he was a goalie.

No worries, I've been on islands before, only to have people desperately trying to swim over when the truth came out.

 

[ZBBM]

Wow.  Sounds like a really great game tonight.  (Although my daughters gave a really great concert, so I had a good excuse....  )

I hope this game lays to rest all the Gustavsson is useless kind of commentary.  He's shown he can play like this before, and I for one am comfortable having him and Reimer as the tandem.  Let them push each other.

 

[Kin]

Actually Ralphy did. But he was a goalie.

No worries, I've been on islands before, only to have people desperately trying to swim over when the truth came out.

Yeah, this is more a case of one of those Japanese soldiers who never got the message that the war was over.

Again, you have to make the argument that Neal initiated the contact. Gus was the guy who caused the contact. It's pretty easy to see.

 

[TML fan]

You can see on the replay he lifts his right leg (back leg) to shoot, puts it back on the ice, then strides FORWARD (as it is his RIGHT leg that makes the initial contact on Gustavsson) before the collision. If he has enough time to stride forward, he has enough time to attempt to pivot and stop.

He made no reasonable attempt to stop (in fact, he made no attempt at all), which is a penalty under the rule of goaltender interference.

That being said, it happens fast on the ice and it's easy to see why the refs didn't call it. Was it a penalty? Yes, absolutely.

 

[Kin]

He made no reasonable attempt to stop (in fact, he made no attempt at all), which is a penalty under the rule of goaltender interference.

Again, that's just not true. The rule clearly states that the attacking player has to initiate the contact, he can't just not make enough of an attempt to stop.

It doesn't make any sense for Neal to initiate contact there and that's why he didn't. Gus diving at his feet can't require a forward to slam on the brakes and not try to score.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

It's just a matter of judgment for the referee: whether the contact was incidental or not.

The rationale for the rule appears to be, contact that is not incidental with a goaltender is to be penalized. 

Then it just becomes a matter of opinion: you either think that Neal had no choice/could not react any differently, and the contact was incidental

or

Neal deliberately stuck his knee out into Gustavsson's head


Clearly the ref thought it was incidental, as does Nik, and I agree.

 

[Kin]

More or less. I also think that a distinction needs to be made in this case between rules 69.1, which is just the definition of goaltender interference in terms of waiving off a goal, and rule 61.2 which is the goaltender interference penalty. Some of the language used to describe this play as a penalty comes from 69.1(reasonable attempts to avoid contact and so on) which is a pretty long rule with a bunch of conditions. 61.2 on the other hand is pretty short and straight forward.

This is it in it's entirety:

61.2 Penalty - In all cases in which an attacking player initiates intentional or deliberate contact with a goalkeeper, whether or not the goalkeeper is inside or outside the goal crease, and whether or not a goal is scored, the attacking player will receive a penalty (minor or major, as the Referee deems appropriate). In all cases where the infraction being imposed is to the attacking player for hindering the goalkeeper?s ability to move freely in his goal crease, the penalty to be assessed is for goalkeeper interference.

In exercising his judgment, the Referee should give more significant consideration to the degree and nature of the contact with the goalkeeper than to the exact location of the goalkeeper at the time of the contact.

So, again, there's nothing there about making all efforts to avoid the goaltender if at all possible. It's just if the player initiates intentional or deliberate contact.

 

[TML fan]

He made no reasonable attempt to stop (in fact, he made no attempt at all), which is a penalty under the rule of goaltender interference.

Again, that's just not true. The rule clearly states that the attacking player has to initiate the contact, he can't just not make enough of an attempt to stop.

It doesn't make any sense for Neal to initiate contact there and that's why he didn't. Gus diving at his feet can't require a forward to slam on the brakes and not try to score.

He already shot the puck and then took a stride forward. As I said, replay shows him shooting off his left foot, then striding forward with his right (which was behind him when the shot was taken), making contact with his right knee, AFTER his scoring attempt was made. When he put his right leg forward he could have pivoted but instead kept going forward. By not attempting to stop and in fact doing the exact opposite of that, Neal is the one who initiated the contact.

It also makes perfect sense for Neal to deliberately run him over, because any contact in that situation might be deemed incidental (which it was) and give the Penguins a chance to pick up the rebound and score on an empty net.

 

[cw]

There it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE5d6X0o69w

He made no reasonable attempt to stop (in fact, he made no attempt at all), which is a penalty under the rule of goaltender interference.

He's looking down at the puck until just before he hits Gustavsson. The whole play from the time he has the puck until he's over Gustavsson is very short. Watch the very first highlight to see how short of a time he had to react. And I think Gustavsson coming out like that surprised him.

He releases the shot, goes over Gustavsson and is around the goal line within one second (the 2 second mark of the video). Roughly half of the one second is after he's hit Gustavsson. Human reaction time is roughly 1/4 second.

So he had to shoot, look up because his head was down, react and then take evasive action within half a second. I think it's terribly unrealistic to expect that - particularly when Gustavasson came at him to reduce the time and space he had to react.

Good non call in my opinion.

EDIT:
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/29/leafs-beat-pens-looking-legit
?I don?t know if I?ll get in trouble (with Allaire),? Gustavsson joked. ?That?s not something we work on. But it felt he was coming in so fast and if I do that, he can?t go anywhere. Usually the puck ends up in your belly. I tried it and I got lucky this time.?

 

[cw]

From the Pens media:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11303/1186258-61-2.stm
The Maple Leafs became the first team to score a five-on-four power-play goal against the Penguins this season. And they did it twice.

The Leafs beat one of the best in the league at special teams with their special teams.

Leafs PP is now 13th, 17.8% (so it's improving)
Leafs PK is now 27th, 74.4% - probably the weakest link that they must improve.

In fairness to the Pens:
Tribune Review link
Defenseman Zbynek Michalek (broken finger, out four to six weeks) and center Jordan Staal (lower-body injury, day-to-day) were unavailable, leaving the penalty killers without two of their top performers

And Fleury, their #1 Pker, wasn't playing either.


Kessel, who leads the NHL with 10 goals, did not get a puck on goal during the first two periods, but shot 50 percent from the field in the third.

"We matched his speed," Penguins defenseman Kris Letang said.

"We didn't give him too much room in the neutral zone to skate with the puck. At the end, the puck found him, and he scored a big goal for them."

Not surprisingly, they were paying special attention to Phil.

"It's tough to give up goals right after you score and get back in the game," Kunitz said. "Every time we bounced back, they didn't get down. They kept coming forward and getting one more goal ahead of us."

That bold sentence is becoming a characteristic of this team in the early going of this season. They certainly seem to believe they can score and often have.

 

[Guru Tugginmypuddah]

Gus says the play looked worse than it was;

http://video.mapleleafs.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=802&id=131606

 

[Erndog]

Not sure if this was mentioned last night, but I was watching the game with friends and right before Kessel scored one of my buddy's says "That's offside." 

So I looked at it this morning and sure enough... he was right. 

(apologies, screen shot taken from my iphone).

After having 2 off-side calls go against us earlier in the year it's nice to have one go our way.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Yeah on all the replays I wondered that myself.

 

[WAYNEINIONA]

If Gus can hold it together this should be a good game tonight. If not it could be a blowout. 4-3 Leafs.

;D

 

[hockeyfan1]

It was a Mats and Monster night!