Controversy In Carolina

Tonight's Devils-Hurricanes game had a bit of a controversial ending. For those who haven't seen the highlights, Carolina broke a 3-3 tie by scoring a goal with 0.2 seconds left. The kicker, though, is that Carolina's Jussi Jokinen bumped into Martin Brodeur just before the deciding shot was fired. As you can imagine, Martin Brodeur - not exactly the most gracious of losers - wasn't very happy, slamming his stick against the ice and the boards as he exited the arena.

You can also imagine how this was treated on the Devils' broadcast. It sounded like a wrestling angle where the bad guy gets screwed over and brings in video evidence to prove their point. They even broke out the NHL rulebook, which proved that it should be a goal; of course, the part about it being a judgment call by the on-ice official and not the review officials was completely ignored. The other part that wasn't mentioned is that the bump took place a full two seconds before the shot was fired and that Brodeur easily should have made the save. Never mind that Jokinen should have had a blocker in his lower back before any other contact even took place.

The announcers went on to state that the referee didn't have to call an interference penalty on Jokinen; they could just reverse the goal and play overtime 5-on-5. That's fine, except you can't prove that the interference definitively caused the goal. If Jokinen bumped Brodeur while the shot was in the air, that'd be one thing. But to ask the referees to disallow a goal just because of incidental contact seconds earlier is ridiculous.

One last thing. If certain players had thrown the same temper-tantrum as Brodeur, they'd be looking at a fairly significant fine. But not Brodeur, the NHL's golden boy, Mr. 552 Wins. Instead, we'll get endless platitudes about his passion and how "all he cares about is winning". Make sure you have a barf bag ready as you watch Game 5 of this series.