Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky almost kept the Boston Bruins scoreless through two periods of Tuesday’s Game 3.
Almost.
With 39 seconds remaining in the second frame of a 2-0 game, Bobrovsky thought he’d made a save on Bruins forward Jake DeBrusk. The whistle was blown, any potential goal on the play was immediately waved off, and a scrum ensued as the Bruins argued their case.
The NHL’s Situation Room called for a review of the play.
As a replay showed, the puck did fully cross the goal line as Bobrovsky was unable to get a grasp on it. Then the question became when, exactly, the play was whistled dead — and whether the puck’s crossing the goal line was ultimately affected by the whistle.
After a lengthy review, the goal was deemed good in accordance with the “continuous play” ruling. The NHL released a statement shortly after, which stated that “DeBrusk’s original shot completely crossed the Columbus goal line as the culmination of a continuous play where the result was unaffected by the whistle.”
If you flip through the NHL Rule Book to Rule 38.4 (ix), you’ll find the following explanation:
[blockquote]”The video review process shall be permitted to assist the Referees in determining the legitimacy of all potential goals… include situations whereby the Referee stops play or is in the process of stopping the play because he has lost sight of the puck and it is subsequently determined by video review that the puck crosses (or has crossed) the goal line and enters the net as the culmination of a continuous play where the result was unaffected by the whistle (i.e., the timing of the whistle was irrelevant to the puck entering the net at the end of a continuous play).”[cite]- Rule 38.4 (ix) [/cite][/blockquote]
DeBrusk was credited with the goal, unassisted. It was his second goal of the post-season.
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