The New Jersey Devils scored early in the second period of Tuesday night’s game, giving them a 3-1 lead over the visiting Flames. Calgary, though, challenged the goal, feeling that New Jersey’s Sergey Kalinin pushed Flames captain Mark Giordano into his own goaltender, Jonas Hiller.
From the NHL:
At 1:14 of the second period in the Flames/Devils game, Calgary requested a Coach’s Challenge to review whether New Jersey committed a goaltender interference infraction before the puck entered the Calgary net.
After reviewing all available replays and consulting with NHL Hockey Operations staff, the Referee confirmed no goaltender interference infractions occurred before the puck crossed the goal line.
Therefore the original call stands – good goal New Jersey Devils.
Since the Coach’s Challenge did not result in the original call being overturned, the Calgary Flames forfeit their time-out.
The NHL rule for goaltender interference does address players being pushed into the goaltender in Rule 69:
If a defending player has been pushed, shoved, or fouled by an attacking player so as to cause the defending player to come into contact with his own goalkeeper, such contact shall be deemed contact initiated by the attacking player for purposes of this rule, and if necessary a penalty assessed to the attacking player and if a goal is scored it would be disallowed.
On this play, it appears that referee Ghislain Hebert felt that either Giordano’s momentum carrier him into the goaltender and he was not sufficiently pushed by Kalinin so as to disallow the goal or that Giordano’s extended stay in the crease – along with multiple saves made by goaltender Jonas Hiller before the eventual goal – were far enough removed from the initial contact.
That goal gave the Devils a 3-1 lead, ultimately going down as the game-winner in an eventual 4-2 victory.
