Chicago 4, San Jose 2. Ouch

Chicago nicely beat the Sharks last night. Good game for the Hawks, one of the teams that’s is always impressing me. The Sharks looked sluggish, but in reality, the Hawks outplayed them, I give more credit to Chicago than I take away from San Jose. I think the Sharks really missed Boyle’s ability to carry the puck last night, but the real issue was the Hawks aggressively pursuing the puck and aggressive breakout. the Sharks fought to deal with it all game.

Weird game; Hawks lost a goal to a double-minor high stick called by a linesman in the first. Since Linesmen can’t stop play for that, play continued until a whistle, that whistle happened to be after a goal. Confused the heck out of the Sharks broadcasters, but they finally sorted it out. The refs actually hauled Cheechoo back out of the locker room to examine the damage — they were lucky he didn’t have a needle and thread in his face being stitched.

So the refs got it right. Well, mostly. They were supposed to announce what was going on to the crowd and didn’t. It is also unclear if they adjusted the clock; Laurie and I watched the game from home (I caught her cold, we both kept our sniffles to ourselves) and Drew mentioned the clock at one point as not being fixed, but I don’t know whether or not they caught it. The clock definitely should have been returned to the time of infraction.

Amusingly enough, the Sharks announcered talked a lot about how they didn’t know the rules and and never seen something like this before. Kind of marvelled at the refs ability to know things to this level (well, that’s their JOB). I knew the rule (because I have no life and I spend it reading rulebooks, I guess) although I couldn’t have quoted number and page out of the book.

Then, later on NHL network Larry Murphy talked about this and did the “maybe the NHL needs to fix this” because of the play going on and then the goal being called back.

Um, Larry? the system worked. It’s a situation that pretty much everyone agrees is quite rare; I’ve probably seen it once before over the years, maybe twice (maybe). The refs got it right (except for the “explain it to the crowd” part). So what’s to fix? And why is the first reaction to anything that “something has to be done”?

Seriously — if it’s a situation that nobody can remember the last time it happened, a situation where the refs got it right, and the end result was appropriate, and nobody died, what’s to fix? And why the kneejerk reaction that it has to be?

I don’t get it. And in general, I think Murphy does a good job on NHL network, but this is a classic symptom of an attitude in the hockey media I think the media needs to step back and think hard about. Edge cases and weird things happen. When they do, if the system worked, it’s not a reason to change the system.

One more home game and on to the big sharks road trip.

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  • http://www.chuqui.com chuqui

    If you think about it, that's why it's called the way it is. The referee has to make the judgement on whether it's 2, 4 or a five minute major. The linesman can't stop the play to ask, because that kinda messes the game up — you don't want them stopping play and then not having a penalty called. So they wait for a stop in play, get together and talk it over, and then the referee decides what to do. In this case, they actually had Cheechoo come out of the locker room to examine the injury, and only after that was the penalty called. If the referees had decided it was only a two minute injury, then they wouldn't have called it and the goal would have stood.

    So it seems strange, but because it's such a rare incident, it's a good way to handle the situation. It doesn't impact the play at the time, but the right call gets made in the end.

  • Joe

    Hmm, can't use the reply buttons…

    Well, it appears I stand corrected. I don't think I've ever seen that happen. Odd that it mentions a high stick that causes injury though, when the blood-drawing highstick is not actually a compulsory double minor, its just normally called that way.

  • Joe

    Hmm, can't use the reply buttons…

    Well, it appears I stand corrected. I don't think I've ever seen that happen. Odd that it mentions a high stick that causes injury though, when the blood-drawing highstick is not actually a compulsory double minor, its just normally called that way.

    • http://www.chuqui.com chuqui

      If you think about it, that's why it's called the way it is. The referee has to make the judgement on whether it's 2, 4 or a five minute major. The linesman can't stop the play to ask, because that kinda messes the game up — you don't want them stopping play and then not having a penalty called. So they wait for a stop in play, get together and talk it over, and then the referee decides what to do. In this case, they actually had Cheechoo come out of the locker room to examine the injury, and only after that was the penalty called. If the referees had decided it was only a two minute injury, then they wouldn't have called it and the goal would have stood.

      So it seems strange, but because it's such a rare incident, it's a good way to handle the situation. It doesn't impact the play at the time, but the right call gets made in the end.

  • Joe

    Uhhhh

    Yeah, this sounds wrong to me. Linesmen can't call penalties. Since when can they do so after a whistle, or go to a ref and say “hey you missed this penalty a couple minutes ago, better call it now”. I've seen it happen several times, where a goal is missed and play continues, until a whistle and they go back. Minnesota earlier this year scored a goal, missed it, scored another one, and only got one. I have NEVER heard of play going on for several minutes, and then a goal being scored, and said goal being revoked, and all action going back retroactively to the point of the penalty that was missed.

    Penalties are missed by the referees. It happens sometimes. Some pretty flagrant penalties may be missed. It happens. You don't just get to rewind the game because of a penalty that was missed by the referees. Its not that the system worked, its that they skipped the system, which allows and admits that some penalties will be missed, to go back and try to call a penalty that was missed.

    • http://www.chuqui.com chuqui

      Rule 33.4 Reporting to Referee (2007 NHL rules; can't find my 2009 handy)

      The linesman must report upon completion of play, any circumstance relating to:

      [....]

      (ix) double-minor penalty when it is apparent hat an injury has resulted from a high sstick that has gone undetected by the referees.

      Should a Linesman witness a foul (above) committe by an attacking player or goaltender undetected by a Referee prior to the attacking team scoring a goal, the Linesman shall report what he witnessed to the Referees, the goal shall be disallowed and the appropriate penalty assessed.

      ===

      In other words, if it's a 2 minute high-stick and the referees doesn't see it, that's too bad. But for a double-minor high stick, and for Major penalties in general, the linesman can take what he saw to the referee at the next stoppage in play. If the referee agrees, then the clock is wound back to the time of infraction, the play (EXCEPT for penalties, which will be given out, so players don't see this as a free shot) is as if it never happened, and the penalty is called.

      It's been this way a long time. I could go back into my collection of rulebooks but many are in storage right now. It's just a rarely needed or called situation.

  • Joshua McMinn

    Don't forget, Lukowich is also out. It's actually quite impressive how well the Sharks have motored along without their top defense pair (last two games), and missing at least one, and often two of their top four defensemen (Blake missed time too). Since Lukowich went out on Jan 7, the Sharks have gone 7-2-0, with the losses coming to Calgary and Chicago, both pretty good teams. Meanwhile, they beat Detroit without Lukowich and Blake over that span.