Sharks now want NHL excuses for controversial call

The Sharks watched, amused, as rudimentary first-round arbitrations led to their unlikely return in Game 7 and the league discreetly apologized to the still-salty Golden Knights. Not that it was good for Vegas; they still play golf (the general reaction of the Sharks to this fuss could be summed up in this tweet So it would be interesting to see how San Jose would react to a questionable call that was blamed on them in the second round, which set a goal for the Avalanche en route to a 4-3 Colorado win and a series . tied to one. Would they complain when the skate was on the other foot? Did they specifically refer to Vegas's grievance? Reader, they would absolutely do it.

Towards the end of the second period, Avs defender Nikita Zadorov threw a puck on the ice, which the Sharks expected to qualify as icing. But Mikko Rantanen rushed there, and if he did not enough He beat Marc-Edouard Vlasic to the puck. He was at least close enough for the linesman not to blow up the game. The Sharks, anticipating a whistle, seemed to retreat for a moment, allowing Rantanen to put Gabriel Landeskog on the front of the door and Tyson Barrie returned the rebound for a lead that Colorado would never give up.

As for the controversy of the officials of the last series, the burden remains on the injured team not to, you know, sink completely on the ice. No matter if the call is right or not, the Sharks ruined everything by assuming the frosting instead of continuing to play until the scheduled whistle. It was the tackling coach that Pete DeBoer took when asked if he thought the ice should have been called.

"It does not matter whether it is or not," he said. "The players did it and they gave up, they relaxed for a minute, that was obviously not the case, so I guess the lesson is given, and it's that nothing happens in the series, play and make sure. "

This seems to be the right attitude. But should it was a frosting? It's more difficult to answer. Starting in 2013, the NHL has moved from touch icing to hybrid icing, which does not require a player to touch the puck for the whistle to go off. Rather, it is up to the lineman to determine whether the defending player would have get there first, and whistle before that actually happens. This was done to eliminate potentially dangerous collisions when opposing players ran for touch-ups first, but the obvious side effect is that the games most likely to cause collisions are the nearest calls: the 50- 50. Icing, with the exception of the most obvious examples, is a judgment.

It was damn tight, and although Vlasic seemed to touch the puck first, it was not inevitable, not with Rantanen coming in with the crazy breath he had. "I just tried to beat the D and shoot the puck," Rantanen said. "[It was a] 50-50 puck and they did not whistle it, so it was good for us. "

Vlasic, however, planted his tongue firmly in the cheek.