NHL teams
Scott Burnside, ESPN Senior Writer 8y

High-stick non-call in Penguins-Rangers Game 3 looms large

NEW YORK -- This postseason has become the Stanley Cup playoffs of the review. The spring of breaking down the immediate past, frame by frame, to make sure the right outcomes are reached.

In Game 3 of the New York Rangers' first-round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, a first-period goal by Rangers forward Chris Kreider was overturned because the play was offside. It was the right call -- just as every other overturned goal this postseason has been the right call regardless of how close the plays were.

It has been so for the Chicago Blackhawks and the New York Islanders and even the Rangers, who had a goal stand upon review in Game 2.

But a day after the Rangers fell behind the Penguins 2-1 in this series following a 3-1 loss at Madison Square Garden, it was another replay that was very much a talking point.

With just under 13 minutes remaining in regulation on Tuesday night and the Rangers trailing 2-1, a collection of players converged in the corner behind the Penguins' net. Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang was jostled against the boards by Dominic Moore and responded with a slash of his stick that caught the Rangers' Viktor Stalberg in the mouth.

Stalberg lost three teeth in the encounter but continued to play.

No penalty was called on the play, and NHL officials confirmed on Wednesday that there would be no supplemental discipline for Letang.

The Rangers were perhaps surprisingly Zen about the missed call on Wednesday.

“Well, we might feel that it seems deliberate,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “The NHL doesn’t see it that way, and the referees on the ice at that time didn’t see it that way. So, we’ve just got to deal with it and focus on the next game.”

It offers an interesting window into where the game is going, though. Officials have shown interest in getting it right, in making sure that important moments in the game are adjudicated accurately.

Sure, there’s been lots of debate over the laborious nature of the offside challenges and more than a little consternation that so many plays seem to escape the human eye of the linesmen in terms of what is and is not ruled offside.

But it seems an acceptable downside to making sure goals scored are good goals.

Penalties are not subject to video review, and no one is suggesting that the league open up that can of replay worms. Still, in this case, is there anyone who saw the video of the Letang high stick who didn’t believe that a penalty should have been called?

At least a minor. Maybe more.

Even Letang acknowledged the contact, although he insisted it was purely accidental and said that he didn’t know that he’d struck Stalberg until he saw him on the ice.

“There was nothing intentional,” Letang said. “Never would I try to strike someone intentionally like that.”

Letang said he apologized when Stalberg skated by.

It’s an incident, in hindsight, that looms large given the tightness of the game. What would a Rangers power play have meant at that moment?

The fact that Vigneault had earlier noted that he felt officials had been missing fouls against his players makes the situation even more interesting. Still, Vigneault would not allow the "what might have been" or "should have been” to contaminate his team’s focus moving forward.

“Frustration is not what we need right now,” Vigneault said. “I think we need to put our focus here on coming out with good execution tomorrow. That’s what we’re going to concentrate on.”

During a spring in which we are seeing games turn more and more on technology and correcting the errors of human beings trying to process moments in a game played at lightning speed, it turns out there is still more than a little humanity in governing the game after all.

Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist said he hadn’t seen the play but seemed unconcerned. “There’s always plays you’re going to question after the game,” he said. “It’s easy for us to sit here and watch the tape, and in slo-mo, and it’s like, ‘Hey, that’s obvious.'

“But game is fast out there, and mistakes are going to happen. Sometimes you don’t agree on the calls, but it happens."

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