In a game that sounds like a movie script, the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the New York Rangers 3-2 in the shootout. The game tying goal came from Lightning Dominic Moore with just 1:57 left in the third period. Moore was also the only shooter to score in the shootout. He was the first star of the game.
But it was what happened earlier in the day that shines a Hollywood spotlight on Moore.
Martin St. Louis (TBL) was practicing with the team in New York, getting ready for an important game. How important? Well, the Lightning have been struggling this year, winning just 4 of their last 13 games and going into New York on a five game losing skid. But it was a personal milestone for St. Louis.
He has played in every game since November 15, 2005. That's 499 consecutive games meaning tonight would be game number 500. Unfortunately, Moore had an errant pass that caught St. Louis beneath the left eye, seriously injuring the short forward. It is such an injury that St. Louis not only missed 500 consecutive games, but is not traveling back with the team. Rather, he is spending the night in a New York hospital for observations before Lightning doctors check him out, after the swelling goes down.
That's just one side of the bench. On the other side, you have the New York Rangers, celebrating their 86th season. And they sit at 2,499 franchise wins. That means that a win over the suffering Lightning gives them 2,500 wins.
Truly, this was shaping up to be a historic night. But Moore single-handedly kept two plateau records at bay. He inadvertantly ceased Martin St. Louis's consecutive games. But he did give the team a needed win (and possibly made up a little for injuring his teammate) by scoring the needed goals at critical times.
However, it is Ranger Artem Anisimov's goal celebration that created a topic of Hockey Cop conversation.
It was a good goal, even a pretty one. I mean that was a glorious tic-tac-toe move by the Rangers, and they were on the penalty kill.
But this was just the go-ahead goal against a struggling team in second period. In December. There was no need to mockingly "shoot" the goal or its tender. Tampa Bay captain Vinny Lecavalier immediately went after Anisimov and soon was joined by lots of white and blue sweaters, including teammate Steve Downie. According to the NHL:
"There were a combined 38 minutes in penalties dished out, including 10 to Downie. According to the official play-by-play, Downie was not on the ice at the time of the goal, which means he left the bench to join the fracas. Rangers coach John Tortorella said officials told him they missed it, but Downie could be subject to a suspension or supplementary discipline."
Here's something interesting: both teams said Anisimov went too far. It's easy to say the Lightning thought so. That's par for the course when something like this happens. The victims say the aggressor was out of line, went to far, and so on. But to have your own team critize your celebration? That probably means you-done-wrong.
Anisimov wasn't permitted to speak with reporters after the game at the behest of the coach.
Rangers alternate captain Brad Richards said he completely understood why Lecavalier, a former teammate, reacted the way he did.
"He wasn't trying to embarrass anybody; he was celebrating a nice goal," Richards said. "But that's what happens in hockey."
That is a lot of support from the opposition. What did the Lightning have to say?
"It's just classless," Tampa Bay forward Steven Stamkos said. "I think I've seen him do that once or twice before, so no surprise there. We got the win. He'll know it's in the back of our minds the next time we see him. But we're not going to break focus because of that. We wanted to win the game and we did.
"I don't know if you saw the replay, but he turned back and pointed the stick like a gun and shot it at Vinny. We don’t need that in our sport. For the most part, you don't see that too much. But it happens once in a while and it's dealt with."
To be fair, I saw him shooting at the goal.
But what will happen next? Will there be any suspensions or fines resulting from this?
Well, there are two seperate things to consider. Downie and Anisimov. For Anisimov, I don't see anything coming from the NHL offices, mostly because of the way the Rangers took care of it right away. While showboating does happen in the NHL, it is not at epidemic proportions, like the NFL.
Did you know goal celebrations are not specifically addressed in the rules? The closest thing would be 75.2 (i) - A minor penalty for Unsportsmanlike Conduct for "any identifiable player who uses obscene, profane or abusive language or gestures directed at any person". And that is exactly what Anisimov was whistled for.
Again, the NHL has a rule in place and it was appropriately applied in this case. And over-the-top celebrations really don't happen all that much in the NHL. Usually a raising of the arms and a group hug. Maybe a slide on the ice or some gesture, but it is pretty rare the actions are directed at anyone specific.
I do remember attending a game on January 6, 2006 where new hot-shot Sidney Crossby was playing in Atlanta versus proven scorer Ilya Kovalchuk. They had been chippy all game, but it was a slashing penalty committed by Crosby at 17:40 in the 2nd and the subsequent Thrashers power play goal at 18:04 that I can still recall so vividly in my mind.
The point.
I'm not so sure that wasn't unsportsmanlike, but it wasn't whistled. My point is that inappropriate goal celebrations are so rare that I can only immediately recall seeing one in all the games I attended.
As a side note, the Thrashers barely won that game. Final score, 6-4 with an empty netter by Ilya at 19:15 for a hat trick. Yeah, four unanswered goals in the third. If you look at the box score linked above, it's from ESPN which means they just replaced every "Atlanta" with "Winnipeg", "Thrashers" with "Jets" and the smirking chicken logo with the circle plane leaf logo. So it looks like the Jets beat the Penguins in 2005. Don't be fooled.
Back to the Tampa Bay / Rangers game and Downie's fate.
You can clearly see him sitting on the wall before the fight on this video (around the 2:00 mark). I don't know if he was trying to get on the ice for the next faceoff or if he was trying to get on for the injured #14 Callahan. Officially, he never made it on the ice.
He was assessed a misconduct penalty, but that was not for leaving the bench. The officials missed that.
Rule 70 clearly stats that the first and second player that leaves the bench for starting an altercation recieves a game misconduct penalty (not just a misconduct).
Then come the supplimental penalties. The game officials have the first say in who left the bench, but the rule does say the Commissioner can determine that if it is not clear at the time on the ice to the officials. However, the rule appears to be talking about seeing which players go on the ice first, such as in a bench clearing brawl, but it can be easily applied in this situation too (I would think) where the officials just miss a player joining in from the bench. The fine is set for anyone who leaves the bench to fight to be $10,000. The suspension is an automatic 10 games without pay.
Downie should be suspended. Much like Anisimov's move was dumb and done without much thought as to what he was doing (or its consequenes), Downie made a dumb move by joining in the melee when he shouldn't have been on the ice to begin with. It was the heat of the moment fight where the Captain of the team initated it. Even the Ranger coach acknowledged that it was basically the right thing to do, somewhat legitimizing the fight. But still, rules are rules and Downie violated them. Unfortuante for him, there is no legancy written in the rule and the fines and suspensions are set.
It gets worse for the Lightning. If you keep reading Rule 70, you'll get to paragraph nine of section ten.
The Coach of the team whose player left the players' bench...during an altercation shall be suspended, pending a review by the Commissioner. The Coach also will be fined a maximum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
So not only is Downie in trouble, but Lightning Head Coach Guy Boucher could be suspended and fined as well. It is not an automatic penalty, but the language used makes it sound like that is the expectation. Will Commissioner Bettman actually suspend Boucher? Should he?
I don't think this incident merits a coach's suspension. This was not a game that had lots of fights and was getting out of control where a coach should have had better control of his team. Downie was also sitting on the boards just before the fight and left very soon after it got started (so much so the referees didn't even notice). It would have been difficult to yell at him in enough time to stop him. If he was sitting on the bench and made a move to jump over the wall, that can be stopped much easier.
The next game for Tampa Bay is Saturday at the Flyers, so I would expect an announcement late Friday afternoon from the Commissioner on both Downie and Boucher's fate. Unless Bettman decides something bizarre, Downie will sit out the next 10 games. The only argument I could see someone making to prevent suspension is that Downie may have violated the letter of the law, but not the spirit of it since he was, in good faith, trying to make a line change at time the altercation broke out and therefore should only be punished as someone would have been if they had been on the ice legally.
I don't see that (or any argument) working to prevent the 10 game suspension and $10,000 fine, especially since he was sitting on the wall. Boucher has a chance of avoiding any punishment, but that seems like a long shot as well (though I'd suspect he gets a low sentence).
TTFN
