While it absolutely sucks to feel robbed of yet another legitimate ending to what was an otherwise awesome overtime playoff game and once again be forced to discuss suspect officiating as opposed to the quality of hockey being played, at least we can all rest easy knowing that absolutely nothing could possibly be done to right such an obvious wrong. Human error (or professional incompetence, whichever you prefer) is simply an unfortunate and irreparable part of the game, as evidenced by the fact that the NHL never abuses technology in the type of paranoid pursuit of the puck's involvement in potentially illegal activities that would make YouTube conspiracy theorists proud. It's a tough break for the Blues that Timo Meier ever-so-subtly smacked the puck to a wide open teammate, whose hesitancy alone could have told you that a hand pass was afoot, mere feet in front of the net with the grace of someone with a bee sting allergy fighting off a swarm of hornets, but what are we to do? Believe that the striped supervisors predominantly treating their most important piece equipment as purely ornamental when pivotal postseason games hang in the balance can't handle their responsibilities? In all seriousness, I'm not one of those people that wants every little on-ice infraction brought to replay. That said, if four full-time officials can't be trusted to trust their eyes, nor comprehend that flat out refusing to blow the whistle when the outcome of a game is on the line has the exact same counterproductive effect on it as doing so too often, then it stands to reason that it might be wise to enlist the help of the 6,000 HD cameras swaddling every inch of the ice like a literal security blanket. I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the referees working last night's game by assuming they'd get at least the first three rows of letters right on a routine eye exam. Unfortunately, that leaves cowardice and incompetence as their only explanations for the lack of a painfully obvious call. If a postseason that has been governed by Murphy's Law in attacking every vulnerability and loophole in a rulebook that reads absolutely ridiculous in retrospect with respect to replay has proven anything it's that on-ice officials are either entirely inept or completely overwhelmed. In most cases, I don't necessarily blame them as the players are bigger, faster, and stronger than ever. However, much like pucks previously out of play ending up in the back the net, if we have to worry about blatant hand passes in the slot during sudden death going undetected by eight fully functioning eyeballs then let's just lube up and throw ourselves head-first down the slippery slope of going back and re-governing entire games at 1/100th speed. If the alternative is having half the Stanley Cup storylines be deja-vu inducing cries of injustice then it's the lesser of two evils.
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