The Bruins twice thought they’d scored their third goal of the game to take the lead. Both times, those goals were overturned on a Coach’s Challenge.
Boston, leading 2-1, looked to have doubled their lead early in the 2nd. Bruins center Karson Kuhlman deflected in his first goal of the season. Colorado Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar challenged the play citing goaltender interference.
After review, the goal was waved off. The NHL ruled that Boston’s David Krejci made contact with Avalanche goaltender Philipp Grubauer prior to the goal being scored. Krejci’s stick and later, his skate, appeared to impede Grubauer’s ability to play his position in the crease.
From Rule 69:
The overriding rationale of this rule is that a goalkeeper should have the ability to move freely within his goal crease without being hindered by the actions of an attacking player. If an attacking player enters the goal crease and, by his actions, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to defend his goal, and a goal is scored, the goal will be disallowed.
Early in the third period, with the game tied, Boston once again looked to add to their total on the scorebard.
Bruins winger Jake DeBrusk fired one past Avs goaltender Philipp Grubauer to give the Bruins a 3-2 lead.
Once again, Bednar challenged the play, this time arguing that the play was offside. Once again, he was successful. And once again, it was Pastrnak who was found to be at fault for entering the zone ahead of the puck.
The scoreboard was reset to 2-2, and the clock was wound back to 19:43 since the offside happened 52 seconds prior to the goal being scored.
“Any time you get production finally and it gets taken away from you — twice — you almost don’t believe it, but that’s how things are going for me,” said DeBrusk. “I scored and had an assist tonight but they [both] got called back. We should’ve won this game 4-2, but I guess neither of them were goals and that’s how they called it. They looked at it and called it out how it was. It won’t snowball for me, but I’m definitely frustrated].”
NESN’s Billy Jaffe weighed in with his thoughts on video review.
.@BJaffe speaks his mind about replay in sports during our Bruins postgame show ? pic.twitter.com/C5VL4Hmv8E
— NESN (@NESN) October 11, 2019
Last season, the Colorado Avalanche went 5-for-9 (56%) on challenges. they were 2-for-5 (40%) on goaltender interference and 3-for-4 (75%) for offside.
Credit the sharp eye of video coach Brett Heimlich for catching both the interference and the offside zone entry. Had either challenge failed, the Avalanche would have been hit with a two-minute delay of game penalty. This is Heimlich’s third season as Colorado’s video coach; he also spent the two years prior as video coordinator.
The Avs’ post-game show jokingly offered up the Third Star of the Night to Heimlich. (The official third star was Boston’s David Pastrnak. Fitting, as it was Pastrnak who both times caused the situation resulting in both overturned goals being disallowed.)
The Bruins had four goals wiped out via challenge all last season. They’re already halfway to that mark for 2019-20, having lost two in Thursday night’s game.
The Bruins never did get that third goal. They fell to the Colorado Avalanche 4-2.
