The San Jose Sharks and the St. Louis Blues put together one of the most entertaining games of the NHL playoffs on Wednesday night as the Blues fought back from two different two-goal deficits and the Sharks forced overtime with 1:01 left to play.
However, the wildest part of the night came in overtime on the Sharks’ game-winning goal as the game ended in controversial fashion.
There were a lot of upset hockey fans and Blues fans after the missed call, especially since it led to the game-winning goal, but they weren’t as angry as the players and coaches who ended up on the wrong side of the call.
It turns out the officials didn’t give Craig Berube or any of the players an explanation as to why the goal was ruled a good goal and why they never went upstairs to review it. Berube wasn’t the only person who was visibly frustrated with the call as some of the players shared their opinions on the whole thing, as well.
Alex Pietrangelo and David Perron were two guys who shared their opinions on the sequence, and they tried their best not to bash the officials or the league in their answer.
Alex Pietrangelo: I didn’t really get an explanation. I guess there’s a different set of rules for two different teams, so I’m sure they’ll lose some sleep tonight after looking at it. That’s all I’m going to say about it.
Reporter: Did you see a hand pass?
AP: *chuckles* I said that’s all I’m going to say about it.
The Blues captain was careful about his choice of words, but was clearly unimpressed with the officiating in Game 3. As for Perron, he was a bit more straight up with his answers.
Reporter: Can you take us through what you saw on the overtime goal and did that appear to be a hand pass to you?
David Perron: Did it appear? Well yea, it was, but let’s move forward and that’s what we’re going to try to do here in the next 24 hours. We’re a really good team in here and we feel that our first 10 minutes was awesome and then they scored two goals to put us on our heels.
Reporter: David, do you think hand pass should be reviewable, it’s not.
DP: We’re going to go there, eh? Well, yea it was a hand pass, but we’re going to try to move forward and the league is going to take care of like they’ve done so far in the playoffs.
Meanwhile, on the other side of things, Erik Karlsson was asked about his game-winning goal and didn’t seem to see a hand pass on the play.
Reporter: Was that a hand pass on the final goal?
Erik Karlsson: Well we weren’t playing handball were we? We were playing hockey. I think we deserved to win this game and at the end of the day I think neither team drew the shorter stick on any of the calls out there, so it was a fair game.
Do you think the goal should have counted?
