The final score of 6 to 1 in favor of the Florida Panthers could lead us to believe that the Tampa Bay Lightning were fully dominated in this clash in order to be shown the door to the vacation after five games.
But a few games would undoubtedly have given a new perspective on this meeting and even if we do not know if the outcome would have changed, the fact remains that the Lightning saw two goals denied to them at certain moments in the match. Without wanting to take away any credit from the Panthers for their series, Lightning head coach Jon Cooper had a lot to say on the subject.
First, in the 13th minute of the first period, Anthony Cirelli recovered a rebound in front of the net and beat Sergei Bobrovsky to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead. goal, a review at the request of the Panthers changed the verdict since it was ruled that Anthony Duclair, who was fighting with Gustav Forsling in front of the net, prevented the Panthers goaltender from moving to make the save. In doing so, the score remained 0-0.
The other incident occurred with less than three minutes left in the second period with the Panthers up 2-1. A point shot from Mikhail Sergachev found its way into the back of the goal, but officials ruled refused this outcome indicating that Cirelli harmed Borbrovsky in the goalkeeper’s semi-circle, while he tried to get rid of Niko Mikkola’s surveillance. The Lightning coach was unsuccessful in his challenge.
Cooper warned reporters at the start of his post-match press briefing that he would only address the subject of disallowed goals at the end. When the moment arrived, Cooper went into a four-minute monologue showing that he did not understand the decisions rendered. He shares that while players have to fight harder than ever to gain every inch on the ice, goalies are still doing very well and sometimes too well.
“It’s definitely a turning point in this match. If anyone is going to talk about this game, it will be about the goals that were taken away from us. »
“In this league, it seems like every year we have rules to favor goals. There always seems to be an adjustment for more goals to be scored, which is good. »
“To take a goal off the board, it has to be incredibly obnoxious. This is the standard for canceling a goal. Then, the first goal in question is awarded. And I didn’t see anything that would allow it to be removed. It’s hard. Forsling holds Duclair and it’s a penalty. Bob misses the puck and there is a battle in front of the net and the puck ends up in the goal. Now we had to bounce back from that situation, which we did,” Cooper described of the first decision
“For the next one, it’s a battle in front of the net and I’m going to give credit to the goalie, he gave up on the play. He totally gave up. Afterwards, he became agitated and there was at most accidental contact. We had to challenge because they saw the goalkeeper’s reaction. He fooled them (the officials) and we have to live with it, but we had to contest. Once again, has it become clear that battles in front of the net are no longer tolerated? It’s part of the game. These are the prison rules during the series, but not for the guards? We might as well put skirts on them at this point. If that’s how it should be. When you see the players fighting, it’s a war on the ice and I think we let the goalies get away with it. They are much more protected than everyone else,” continued the coach.
“I’ll give credit to my guys because we had some chances in the third period. We shot ourselves in the foot on the fourth goal. But I congratulate the Panthers. They had to weather the storm that was imposed on them, but I have the impression, in my opinion, that we found ourselves in unfair situations. »
“Does that mean we would have won the series? In no way, but I think it would have changed the look of this match a lot,” he concluded.
For Cooper and the Lightning, the damage is done and they will only be able to see if the coach’s plea will change anything for the rest of the series.
