On their way to the national title, the Boston College Eagles burned the Gophers, RedHawks, Sioux and Irish with their teams speed and got good to great goaltending from Muse. I am sure other teams in college hockey will take note that you CAN win a national title by outscoring your opponents and playing smart defense without just simply piling up at the blue line and a focusing on defense first and offense as an afterthought. As a hockey fan, it makes me long for the days of racehorse hockey under Dean Blais. They just went out and tried to score as many goals as possible and played smart defense.
If you think about it, B.C. Eagles's style of play is a breath of fresh air. The Eagles play racehorse hockey and are actually really exciting to watch. Some teams in the NHL and college hockey should take note. In fact I am hoping that my favorite coach takes a look at the film from this past weekend and changes up his game plan a bit.
WCHA officials shine again
Looking back at the National Championship game, the off ice officials (WHCA head of official Greg Shepherd) got another call wrong on a goal. Leave it to the WCHA officials to screw up a perfectly good game and ruin it. If you go back and watch the film, at the end of the embedded video you will see that the Notre Dame player Kyle Lawson had the puck bounce off his left foot. Lawson tried to kick the puck with his left foot but missed. After a long review by the off ice official the goal was waved off. We saw numerous replays of the Notre Dame goal in question and there is no doubt in my mind that the goal should have counted. Adam Wodon also has a really good explanation:
But was the call wrong?
I think it was.
The longer it went on, you knew there was trouble for Notre Dame. The officials explained it as needing to see if the puck hit a stick. Otherwise, they felt pretty early on that Lawson knocked the puck in with a "distinct kicking motion."
I disagree. I've watched it over and over, and I have no idea how you look at that replay and determine that the player kicked the puck in with a distinct motion. And particularly, how do you look at that and determine it conclusively — which is necessary to overrule the on-ice call.
Lawson took a cross-ice feed and tried to corral the puck with his left skate. Then, as he was trying to get his stick down to tap it into what became a wide-open net, he turned his right skate to again try to control the puck. The puck hit off his skate blade, then went rolling towards the net. Lawson tried to tap at it, but whiffed. He also clearly tried to kick it — but it was also clear, at least to me, that Lawson made no kicking motion until after the puck had already deflected off his skate blade and went rolling away.
You don't expect an on-ice official to see that in a split second, but you do expect that, with the benefit of super slo-mo replay, that the video judges would have.
According to Greg Shepherd After a long delay, "The puck was kicked in by the Notre Dame player's right skate. The skate was moving toward the goal line." Way to go, Greg. You managed to botch another call this season.
Another shining moment for the WCHA officials. The WCHA league office must be proud today that they were able to affect a tourney they weren't even playing in.
Box Score
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1st Period (20:00)
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BC-1 Kyle Kucharski (2-Holding the Stick) NDM 0x1 8:41
BC-2 Matt Greene (2-Cross-Checking) NDM 0x2 14:33
NDM-1 Brock Sheahan (2-Roughing) BC 0x1 17:02
BC-3 Anthony Aiello (2-Tripping) NDM 0x3 18:24
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2nd Period (20:00)
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BC 1 - 0 6x6 LL Nathan Gerbe (34) (Brian Gibbons, Ben Smith) 2:23
BC (+): 9,17,12,6,26,G1 NDM (-): 14,5,9,23,19,G1
BC-4 Andrew Orpik (2-Slashing) NDM 0x4 2:51
NDM-2 Ryan Thang (2-Interference) BC 1x2 4:58
BC 2 - 0 6x5 PP GW Nathan Gerbe (35) (Ben Smith, Dan Bertram) 5:37
BC: 9,12,22,15,21,G1 NDM: 25,14,5,22,G1
NDM-3 Dan VeNard (2-Cross-Checking) BC 2x3 6:29
NDM-4 Dan Kissel (2-Tripping) BC 2x4 7:27
BC-5 Kyle Kucharski (2-Holding) NDM 0x5 7:32
BC 3 - 0 5x4 PP Joe Whitney (11) (Nathan Gerbe, Benn Ferriero) 8:11
BC: 15,9,21,12,G1 NDM: 5,23,14,G1
NDM 1 - 3 5x5 Kevin Deeth (11) (Kyle Lawson, Ian Cole) 9:07
NDM (+): 21,2,28,22,G1 BC (-): 4,5,21,14,G1
NDM-5 Dan VeNard (2-High-Sticking) BC 2x5 16:49
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3rd Period (20:00)
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BC-6 Nick Petrecki (2-Elbowing) NDM 0x6 0:08
BC 4 - 1 6x6 Ben Smith (25) (Nathan Gerbe, Brian Gibbons) 5:31
BC (+): 12,9,17,4,26,G1 NDM (-): 14,5,16,25,22,G1
BC-7 Matt Price (2-Obstruction Tripping) NDM 0x7 8:05
BC-8 Matt Greene (2-Hooking) NDM 0x8 9:54
Timeout - Notre Dame 19:12
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End of Game
Maybe instant replay should be outlawed in Denver. For some reasons they only overturn what was called right on the ice.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the better team won, waving off that goal robbed college hockey fans of some very intriguing action to finish up the game. A one goal game with BC starting to say "not again" and ND having some momentum could have provided some awesome action.
What a joke...Wouldn't kicking it require the puck to change direction or speed?
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