Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper openly rebuked the referees following Thursday’s 4-3 defeat to the Pittsburgh Penguins at Benchmark International Arena.
Lightning right winger Nikita Kucherov appeared to tie the game with under a minute remaining, but referees disallowed the goal after determining forward Brandon Hagel had directed the puck illegally with his hand earlier in the sequence.
The NHL’s Situation Room initiated the review under Rule 38, which allows officials to overturn an on-ice call only if video evidence conclusively proves the call was incorrect. Officials determined that Hagel had directed the puck to Jake Guentzel with a hand pass at 1:08 of the third period, just 13 seconds before Kucherov’s goal, rendering the late Lightning tally invalid under Rule 79, which disallows goals if a teammate intentionally plays the puck with a hand.
Cooper questioned the intent and interpretation of the call after the loss, saying:
“There’s a couple things: OK, did he mean to do it, or was it deflected? Was there an advantage gained or not? And you could really debate whether an advantage was gained. Did Brandon Hagel direct that puck, knowing exactly where it was going? No. Would you sit here today and say Brandon Hagel was maybe protecting his face from a puck hitting it, or protecting some part of his body?
“If I threw this microphone at you right now, would you put your hand up to stop it? Hell yeah, you would. All right, so there’s a spirit of the rule. Was that the spirit of the rule for him, take it in the face? If that, okay, let’s let me do that. And I think that’s where we get that wrong, and that’s not what happened. And he didn’t direct any pucks. That was a bang-bang play. There were tons of guys around. It turned out we got it first. A lot of play, a lot of the game developed after that, and the puck went in the net.
“So is that a really frustrating one for me? It is. I think you read the rule book, which we did, and then you try and dissect what happened in the play, and then you take it all into consideration. It’s laughable that that got overturned, but in the end, it did, so can’t cry over that. Bottom line is, we should never put it in that situation anyway. So that’s our bad that we got to that situation.”
The 58-year-old also criticized the the leagues video review system, particularly the fact that the Situation Room in Toronto, rather than on-ice officials, initiated the overturn.
“But I think in the spirit of the rule, come on, that’s a goal all day. Things happen on the ice. The game is fast. Refs get most of it right. None of them thought it was a hand pass. There’s four of them. So it’s the evils of video replay. Now there’s eyes on everything and camera angles, and now it’s judgment calls, and then the judgment of everybody playing the game that was not a hand pass in the judgment of somebody judging in another city that it was deemed to be video, somebody that’s not even in Florida is making that call — that can be a little bit frustrating.”
Tampa Bay launched a furious comeback in the third period, with Hagel scoring twice that trimmed Pittsburgh’s lead after the Penguins had built a 3-0 advantage.
Ville Koivunen opened the scoring with his first NHL goal, while Evgeni Malkin added a goal and an assist before scoring again late in the third to win the game. Ben Kindel also contributed on a second-period power-play goal.
The Lightning peppered the net 40 times, but Pittsburgh goaltender Tristan Jarry made 37 saves, many during sequences orchestrated by Kucherov.
Tampa Bay’s home stretch started on the wrong foot, but they’ll be looking to get back on track when they face the New York Islanders on Saturday night.
