Islanders: Three worst calls against them in last year

“Goalie interference”

On February 25, the Isles were playing the Rangers at the Coli. With the score 3-1 for the visitors 12:16 into the third period, it looks like Anders Lee was able to redirect a puck past Alexandar Georgiev to make it 3-2.

Except the refs say it isn’t a good goal on the ice. After a review, they confirm the call on the ice and now the Isles have to kill a delay of the game penalty for an unsuccessful challenge.

Here’s the play:

https://twitter.com/IslesMSGN/status/1232489665925509120

Where’s the interference exactly? Looking at the NHL rule book it’s clear that the refs were using this passage from rule 69.3 to justify their “no goal” call on the ice:

"If a goalkeeper, in the act of establishing his position within his goal crease, initiates contact with an attacking player who is in the goal crease, and this results in an impairment of the goalkeeper’s ability to defend his goal, and a goal is scored, the goal will be disallowed."

But look at Lee prior to the contact. He’s not in the crease at all. Maybe his back-end is on the line. But there isn’t anything over the line. So, based on the reading of 69.3, there’s no justification for Georgiev to challenge Lee. Again, where is the interference here?

After seeing no goalie interference call given to Greg McKegg for literally skating through the crease and connecting with Semyon Varlamov‘s skate earlier in the game, or how this play from the Isles 2019 playoff run wasn’t goalie interference, it’s wild that this is.

It’s not to say that the Isles win the game if this goal stands, but it would have gone a long way to help them do so.