NHL “Explains” No Goal Call

The NHL has attempted to explain what happened on Brad May’s no goal last night while simultaneously raising another question.

“In all cases we want to get the right call. In this case it appears we didn’t.”

That’s NHL senior vice president of hockey operations Mike Murphy during an appearance on NHL Live! today. Murphy clarified that the play was – in fact – deemed dead by the “intent to blow” rule.

“In this case Dennis LaRue was clear with what he saw and clear with what he interpreted and that was, ‘I had killed the play before the puck entered the net.’ When we scrutinize it and go through video review I think everybody would concede that the puck was in the net, and Dennis didn’t see that unfortunately.”

The question now is why did LaRue intend to blow the play dead? The puck was in the open, in the slot, on May’s stick.

There is no denying that this was the wrong call. At least the league agrees on that point. I am extremely disappointed that the league doesn’t seem to have a problem when LaRue’s description of what happened.

There is simply no reason to intend to blow that play dead. We deserve to know what LaRue thought he saw, not empty reasoning from an NHL suit.