Chirps from Center Ice

With under two minutes to play on Saturday with the Penguins trailing the Binghamton Senators 2-1, there was a goal which was waved off due to goaltender interference. Bombulie already mentioned this in his postgame recap at the Penguins Insider on Saturday night.

I looked for the game on the AHL Live archive yesterday but wasn’t able to get it due to “technical difficulties” on their side.

But today, Eric P from BangBodies.com posted video highlights this afternoon. I decided to do my own “Chirps from Center Ice Investigation” with screen caps from the video:

Faceoff to Lehner’s right in the Penguins offensive zone. Warren Peters wins a faceoff to Benn Ferriero at the blue line who passes to Alex Grant who one times it towards the goal:

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Eric Tangradi was where Eric Tangradi is in the Penguins offensive zone, and that is in front of or within arms length of the goaltender. The man in white is Sens D-man Jared Cowen in front of the goal:

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There is certainly no doubt that Tangradi is in the crease. It looks like from above that Cowen is “boxing in” Tangradi. Here’s where I think referee Dave Lewis interpreted this as goaltender interference. It’s Rule 69 from AHL Rulebook which you can find from the Bombulie postgamer I linked to above.

Here’s a closer look:

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It appears that one of two things are occurring here: a) Lehner made the save OR b) Tangradi is trying to get out of the way, so as not to initiate contact with the goaltender.

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Above, you can see the puck by Tangradi’s left foot. The puck in real time is trickling. It’s clear that Tangradi made contact with Lehner, via box in from Cowen or not, but as you can see from above the puck is NOT across the line.

Until…

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Tangradi sweeps the puck in the net and all hell breaks loose.

I think that the call by Lewis was correct. I think we clearly have goaltender interference on two fronts here. We have it unintentionally in frames two and three. Then, we have it again separately from frames two and three in frames four and five. How? 1) Tangradi is in Lehner’s crease 2) Lehner is unable to make a play on the puck because Tangradi is in his crease.

The play itself is not reviewable, and the above happened within the span of three seconds or less. Lewis waved the goal off immediately.

Again, I agree with the call. I just wanted to “peel back the onion” a bit to help myself sleep better tonight and to further delve into what remains a controversial call for those who want a step-by-step explanation.