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NHL playoffs: 'Delay of game' is 3D icing—and stupid

WASHINGTON—There is a lot of room for interpretation of most NHL rules, something that could easily be seen on Saturday afternoon as Game 2 between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers dragged toward overtime. After two fast-paced periods of quality scoring chances and Braden Holtby and Henrik Lundqvist trading big saves, the third was bogged down in clutch-and-grab mode, with only 10 shots in 20 minutes.

While referees can adjust their standards for interference based on the time of year or even the time of game, there is clarity in Rule 63.2—delay of game, which reads: "A minor penalty for delay of game shall be imposed on any player or goalkeeper who deliberately shoots or bats (using his hand or his stick) the puck outside the playing area during the play or after a stoppage of play."

John Tortorella didn't have much to say about the rule that cost his team an overtime loss. (AP Photo)

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Rule 63.2 applied when Ryan McDonagh played the puck over the glass 7:09 into overtime, and the game ended 51 seconds later with Mike Green whistling a shot past Lundqvist. New York could hardly complain, having failed to capitalize on a power play earlier in overtime after Capitals defenseman Steve Oleksy had fired the puck into the stands.

"It's a rule," Rangers coach John Tortorella said after his team tumbled into a 2-0 series deficit.

The problem is, it's a stupid rule.

While it is nice that there is at least one penalty that NHL referees absolutely must call, with no gray area or room for interpretation, the punishment does not fit the crime. Playing the puck over the glass is basically icing in 3D, but it winds up being more detrimental play than putting your stick to an opponent's testicles, if you consider the number of nutshots that referees never see. It's pretty hard not to notice when the puck has left the rink, though.

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The other problem with the rule: What does "deliberately" mean, anyway? Nobody is trying to shoot the puck out of the rink. Oleksy certainly wasn't. He claimed that his penalty came because of a bad bounce, that the puck was on edge and that was why he wound up firing it over the glass instead of off the glass.

"It's a tough rule when it's not intentional," Oleksy said. "It's one that could be avoidable, but a puck gets flat on your stick, and it's one of those that happens. It happens, and it's kind of weird how things worked out that they got one right after that, and we were able to capitalize."

As luck would have it, Saturday's clinic on the rules included not only the pucks over glass that resulted in penalties on Oleksy and McDonagh, but also one with 45.3 seconds left in the third period, when the puck went off Washington defenseman Karl Alzner's stick, and into the stands. That play, however, was not called a penalty after a long discussion by the officials.

"I wasn't really sweating it too much because I knew what the call should be," Alzner said. "I was just hoping that they knew it as well. You've got to let them do their thing. If it was (a penalty), I'd have all the faith that the guys would kill it for me, but it's never fun when they're even talking about it."

What Alzner's play showed is that even the one rule with no gray area and no room for interpretation has some gray area and room for interpretation. The explanation that Capitals coach Adam Oates received was that "one of their players shot it, and he deflected it."

That much was true. There was no way Alzner shot the puck over the glass. But did he bat it? Maybe he did; officially he didn't. Given that the Rangers failed to record a shot on goal during two of their three power plays, including the one from Oleksy's penalty, it was not as if you could say that the missed call—if it even was missed—cost them the game. The correctly-called penalty on McDonagh certainly did.

It's just too bad that pretty much the only way you see the officials apply the rulebook standard in overtime of a playoff game is to give out two-minute penalties for 3-D icing.

"It doesn't matter which penalty," Alex Ovechkin said. "We'll take it."

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