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 Agreeing with Game 6 crease call
Posted: Tuesday June 22, 1999 07:29 PM
Click here to send an NHL question to Kostya Kennedy. What, the season's over already? Not quite. Even after 10 months the 1998-99 NHL campaign refuses to die as controversy over Brett Hull 's Cup-winning goal continues. I feel bad for the league. What a terrific Cup finals we got after several consecutive duds. To have it end on a disputed rule enforcement is a small tragedy. A lot of you wrote in regarding the Conn Smythe and everyone agreed that Joe Nieuwendyk deserved it. I'm with you all, absolutely, though Ed Belfour 's numbers were staggering. Maybe he was shaky at times in the postseason, but he had a shutout in Game 5 of the finals and he played terrifically game in the last, most important, game of the season. If he had won the Conn Smythe I would not have complained. Just a few days until the expansion and entry drafts. Why don't you all get in some post-draft questions, about the new players, specific teams, the Atlanta Thrashers and whatever else. We'll get to them next week. For now, a few letters more on the never-ending season:
Kostya, I have to ask why the NHL just won't admit that Dallas'
overtime winner was a mistake? For NHL head of officiating title Bryan
Lewis (doing his best James Carville spin-impersonation) to very
defensively state that Hull had control of the puck is a joke!! Though I
firmly believe that the crease rule is a horrible rule, it's still a rule!
Sometimes integrity means more than just trying to save face! What are
your thoughts? The NHL would never admit that allowing the goal was a mistake. To admit that would invalidate Dallas's title. Remember, league personnel refuse to admit ANY mistakes, even small ones, and they are always on the defensive. That's how the NHL operates. It puts a spin on almost everything, which everyone sees right through. The league turned the crease rule into a judgment call which flies in the face of what the crease rule, for better or worse, is all about. However, the liberal possession loophole was there. It had been built in in the aftermath of a non-goal scoring attempt by Adam Oates late in the regular season. One can make a strong argument that Hull, who is extremely strong and was focused on the puck, never lost possession of the puck -- even though it had bounced off Dominik Hasek and was not directly on Hull's stick. Because this was a judgment call, the officials were being consistent with the way they had been calling the majority of the game game by not waving off the goal. In the last 74 minutes of Game 6 everything was allowed to slide: slashing, tripping, hooking. All those offenses were overlooked and unpenalized and we accept that as part of the climate late in a crucial game. I don't remember seeing someone look as uncomfortable as Lewis looked on the dais at 2:30 Sunday morning. He came out after both coaches and several players had spoken; the NHL spent a long time devising its plan of what to say. Lewis says that the goal was duly reviewed and that the officials would have stopped the on-ice celebration if they had thought the goal should be overturned. I do not believe him. I do not believe that the play was ever reviewed in good faith. But I do think that in spite of this, the right verdict was reached.
Ever since the Dallas
Stars won the Presidents' Trophy last season, the hockey community as a
whole had been disturbed by the Stars' overwhelming rise. Nonetheless, the
NHL has been more competitive than ever, which explains the lack of scoring
in the finals series, where the teams have strong units anywhere on the ice
and in any given line. Moreover, many teams have risen to Cup contender
status, most notably, the Toronto Maple Leafs,
who bounced back from two seasons out of the playoffs to within a grasp
from the finals. With that in mind, is the birth of a dynasty like the
Canadiens in the 1950s possible over the next few years? There are too many teams and talent is too spread out to have that kind of dynasty. You will see good, rich teams stay in the Cup chase for many years running but with the way players change teams, there will continue to be annual surprises and no dynasties to come close to the Canadiens of the '50s.
I was watching Game 5 of the finals, when I saw Rhett Warrener get two
minutes for a borderline slash, yet Dominik Hasek had been slashed and
bumped continually by both Toronto and Dallas without any calls except for
the obvious hit by Brian
Skrudland. In your opinion, is there a backlash against Hasek by the
refs, given his tendency to overreact on any contact? Opponents treated Hasek very rudely, but he committed as many illegal offenses as he suffered in the playoffs. Hasek's overreactions aren't much of an issue, but referees know that he's a very aggressive keeper who puts himself in positions where he dishes things out and takes them. So they allow a good deal of contact in those situations. I did not think that, say, the Mike Modano hit in Game 2 should have been penalized, and it was not.
Send a question to Kostya Kennedy, and
check back every week to read more of his answers.
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