The Washington Capitals did not deserve to win against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday, but there was a shred of hope they could complete a comeback late in the third period.
Capitals defenseman Jakob Chychrun scored what appeared to be his 15th goal of the season with 10:19 remaining in the game. The tally would have narrowed the Detroit Red Wings’ lead to 4-3, but official Francis Charron immediately waved the goal off for goaltender interference.
As Matt Roy gathered in a puck and found Chychrun wide open on the left side, Aliaksei Protas got bumped deep into the crease by Red Wings defenseman Ben Chiarot, causing the Belarusian forward to lose his balance and grab onto the crossbar to stay upright. Red Wings goaltender John Gibson then either lost his balance as he tried to shove Protas out of the crease or instinctively dove to the ice — your choice — leaving the net wide open for Chychrun to shoot the puck into.
“I get pushed on that,” Protas said postgame. “There wasn’t a reason for me to go through the goalie. I tried to go around. Maybe I touched the crease, but I wouldn’t go through the goalie, you know? The reason I get pushed in and the goalie gets involved. I don’t know. He gets involved. He also pushing me, instead of kind of (going) back to the position.”
With the Capitals down two goals and not playing well, Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery elected to challenge the ruling on the ice of goaltender interference. Per the NHL rule book, if “the attacking Player was pushed, shoved, or fouled by a defending Player which caused the attacking Player to come into contact with the goalkeeper,” a goal could stand despite the ensuing chaos.
Ultimately, after a several-minute review, the call on the ice was upheld, and the Capitals were assessed a two-minute delay-of-game penalty for an unsuccessful challenge.
The play on the ice was challenged under Rule 38 – Coach’s Challenge. Rule 38.1 states, “In all Coach’s Challenge situations, the original call on the ice will be overturned if, and only if, a conclusive and irrefutable determination can be made on the basis of video evidence that the original call on the ice was clearly not correct. If a review is not conclusive and/or there is any doubt whatsoever as to whether the call on the ice was correct, the original call on the ice will be confirmed.”
Video review confirmed that Washington’s Aliaksei Protas impaired John Gibson’s ability to play his position in the crease before the puck entered the net. The decision was made in accordance with Rule 69.1 which states, in part, that “Goals should be disallowed only if: (1) an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal.”
After the game, Carbery explained his decision-making to the press.
“So, Pro, obviously, is at the crease,” the Capitals bench boss began. “He’s trying to get out. So the way that I see that, and look, I know that’s an iffy one. It’s 50-50 or whatever percentage you want to put on it. Because of how we’ve seen some of these calls go, and we’ve sat and done the exercise as a staff. Sometimes we’re 60 percent, sometimes we’re 50 on whether we believe it [is a goal]. What I’m saying is we’ll look at 10, and I’ll look at 10, and I’ll be right on 6 or 7, wrong on 4.
“In that situation, the score, down two, 10 minutes to go, a goal is huge to get us to one,” Carbery continued. “So, that factors into the decision-making. And then, with the specifics to the actual goalie interference, the way that I see that is Chiarot shoves Pro into the crease. So, he pushes him, Pro then braces himself and stops himself on the net, gets shoved in. He gets pushed in, and now he’s in Gibson’s area, and then Gibson shoves him out, which then creates him out of position and creates the goal.
“The question would be how hard did he push Pro? Goalie interference, to me, a lot of people talk about the crease and the blue paint and who’s where, is his butt or his heel. It’s all about force in certain instances, like how hard did he push? How hard did Pro work to get out of the crease or not go into the crease? And that’s all subjective to me, like, how are you going to measure force? How hard did Chiarot push Pro in? They felt like it wasn’t very hard. They said he just sort of nudged him in, and Pro could have done a better job of getting out of the crease. That’s essentially what they decided on that. That’s the way it went.”
With the call, Spencer Carbery and the rest of the Capitals coaching staff fell to 0-for-6 when making Coach’s Challenges this season, per the NHL’s media site. Four of those failed challenges have been for goaltender interference.
Meanwhile, opposing coaches have gone 1-1 when challenging the Capitals this season, and a review initiated by NHL Hockey Operations overturned an additional Washington goal in November.
Protas may not have been happy with the officials’ call, but he acknowledged that there would have been no need to challenge if the Capitals had played well in the first two periods.
“I think to me it’s kind of questionable, but that’s not on me to make the call and make the decision,” Protas said. “So, unfortunately, we could prevent that by playing better before.”
