Let's start by stating what, with the benefit of frame-by-frame, picture perfect hindsight, is blatantly obvious. It was a bad call. In fact, when you consider the extent to which the outcome of the play influenced the way it was disciplined, you could pretty easily say it was an egregious call. Of course, if the result of the hits, hooks, slashes, and high sticks exchanged between fast and physical players during heated and high-stakes competition didn't play a huge factor in how they are officiated then Game 7 powerplays would be about as common as Joe Thornton barbershop visits. With the result of this particular instance being as ugly as a star player laying lifeless while gushing blood all over the ice from his previously broken face, I actually feel this rare and uncomfortable urge to sympathize with the referees who were denied the luxury of replay in looking at a collision that appeared far more egregious on first glance...
Still, they made a very bad, game-changing call that monumentally swung momentum. That much is undeniable. Luckily, you need not look further back than about an hour for a reminder that bad calls go both ways, as the same player who was unjustly tossed for what should have been a mere crosschecking minor celebrated the upholding of one after extending the Knights' lead with a fairly conspicuous high stick...
Admittedly it would be moronic to expect any team to come out the other side of a continuous 5-minute loss in manpower unscathed, especially on the road against an opponent as skilled and desperate as a loaded Sharks' team whose season was on the line. Still, while killing such a belaboring bullshit penalty would have been an ask that made "can you pick me up from the airport at rush hour?" seem reasonable, putting your proverbial hands up, blocking even one of its punches, and offering the least bit of resistance so as to not get brutally bludgeoned by it is not....
Christ, the only killing the Golden Knights were complicit in was of themselves as they repeatedly left usual suspects like Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl locked, loaded, and entirely unchecked in and around the slot. Pulling the plug on untimely powerplays, be they deserved or not, is a massive part of postseason success and Vegas basically stood around looking electrocuted as they got picked apart by a unit whose most notable net front presence was in the locker room bleeding profusely from his mangled mouth. We're talking about a three goal lead evaporating (and then some) in a matter of minutes. Human error is a part of the game and, all things considered, a lot more of it went into the chickens-with-their-heads-cut-off-type cataclysmic collapse than went into a presumptuous penalty call that was peer-pressurized by a pissed off crowd. Simply put, unless the officials were literally dropping pucks past Marc-Andre Fleury on the face-off, that type of meltdown is not entirely on them. Made possible by them (and their outlawed lack of a closer look), for sure, but excusing the type of preposterously pathetic penalty killing that allows for four goals in as any minutes is not something I'm about to do when discussing a sport whose postseason has always put a premium on perseverance. The fact of the matter is that shit is inevitably going to happen during an extensive Stanley Cup playoff run. The pile that the Golden Knights had flung at their feet was far bigger than most, but it's how quickly you rid yourself of the stink after stepping in it that determines your destiny. Therefore, I feel pretty comfortable in saying that Vegas wasn't destined to do much more than advance past what was basically a rickety, seatbelt-less roller coaster of a first round if it took only one mistaken called major penalty to erase all the work they'd put towards having a 3-0 lead in the determining period of a series with which they once held a three games to one advantage.
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