The St. Louis Blues defeated the Winnipeg Jets 3-2 Thursday night in controversial fashion to take a 3-2 advantage in their first-round playoff series.
According to many of the Jets faithful, one of those pivotal Blues goals shouldn’t have counted.
With Winnipeg clinging to a 2-1 lead at 13:52 of the third period, Blues forward Brayden Schenn banged home the game-tying goal right as the Jets’ net was being dislodged by teammate Oskar Sundqvist, who got checked into it by Winnipeg defenceman Dustin Byfuglien.
Sundqvist was charging hard towards the net along the left side and managed to slide a pass towards Schenn, who was streaking in from the right and made good on the chance as Sundqvist crashed hard into Winnipeg’s net.
Immediately after the Blues started to celebrate, the call on the ice was determined to be “no goal.” Afterwards, however, the officials made the decision to take another look at the play and it was determined, after review, the goal was good, much to the chagrin to the Jets and the sold-out Bell MTS Place crowd.
In a statement sent out Thursday night, the league explained the Situation Room’s decision to make Schenn’s goal count.
“The Situation Room informed the Referees that the puck entered the Winnipeg net between the normal position of the goal posts. The Referee then awarded the goal to St. Louis because of the actions of Dustin Byfuglien caused the Winnipeg net to become displaced as Brayden Schenn was in the act of shooting the puck into the Winnipeg net. The decision was made in relation to Rule 63.6 which states in part, ‘In order to award a goal in this situation, the goal post must have been displaced by the actions of a defending player, the puck must have been shot (or the player must be in the act of shooting) at the goal prior to the goal post being displaced, and it must be determined that the puck would have entered the net between the normal position of the goal posts.'”
A momemuntum-shifting decision by the NHL’s Situation Room that set the stage for Jaden Schwartz‘s stunning winner with 15 seconds remaining in the game.
Losing a key playoff game, in part, because of a rule technicality hurts if you’re the Jets or a Jets fan, but in the end the right call does appear to have been made.
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