In their most recent loss, the Pittsburgh Penguins were only able to record a single goal, despite finding the back of the net three times against the Buffalo Sabres.
The opening frame saw the Penguins have a pair of tallies called back thanks to coach’s challenges from the Sabres.
Sidney Crosby was for sure offside on the first challenge, but the second for goalie interference just moments later left a bad taste in a lot of mouths.
The NHL stated that Jake Guentzel made contact with Sabres’ goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, ‘impairing his ability to play his position.’
Upon reviewing the tape, it’s clear Guentzel makes contact with Luukkonen’s head, but it isn’t much, it’s outside the blue paint, and the Penguins were likely scoring on the play anyway.
Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan, he didn’t think the play was goalie interference and plans on taking a harder look at how the league defines the rule.
“Based on that decision, our coaching staff needs to take a long look at the criteria of our understanding of what it is,” Sullivan said. “Jake’s in the white paint, first and foremost. I get it there’s some contact with the goaltender in the blue, but for me the puck’s going in the net anyway.”
The goal would have been a solid deflection from Guentzel to tie the game in it’s early stages, but he says there’s nothing he can do about it.
“You can’t hit the goalie, it’s pretty self-explanatory,” Guentzel said. “It’s just pretty close where the puck seems like it’s going in no matter what. But, it just happens. Nothing you can do.”
When the goals were called back, the Penguins were dominating the Sabres and looked like they could take the game over for an easy victory.
The goals being called back didn’t quite take the wind out of their sails, but it disrupted their momentum.
“We were just rolling by then,” Rickard Rakell said. “We felt like we were right there.”
The Penguins tried to rally back from being a goal down, but couldn’t beat Luukkonen more more than once on 41 shots.
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