Grading The Week: Nathan MacKinnon’s home point streak deserved better. But NHL fun police got this one right.
Denver Post
Back and to the left.
Ryan Lindgren’s blade.
Back and to the left.
Ryan Lindgren’s blade.
Back and to the left.
Still Ryan Lindgren’s blade.
Look, if it were up to the yokels on the Grading The Week instant replay department, Avs icon Nathan MacKinnon would have a home points streak rocking until the Rockies win another pennant. Or the end of civilization as we know it. Whichever comes quicker.
But we’ve also done the Oliver Stone thing — repeatedly — with regards to whether or not Mighty MacK “deserves” a point on the controversial own goal by the Rangers’ Lindgren this past Thursday night.
And while it hurts like a puck to the face for the GTW kids to admit this, based on the letter of the “law,” the NHL fun police might’ve actually gotten this one … right?
The hubbub over MacKinnon’s streak-buster — C
Nobody wants to see a home points streak that was five games away from tying Wayne Gretzky’s 40 in a row hit the skids because of a stinking technicality, right?
But here’s the problem. Actually, we’ve got two.
For one thing, we haven’t seen a replay angle yet in which there’s definitive evidence, despite a pass by 29 in burgundy and blue that led to a Devon Toews shot on the net, that Lindgren isn’t the last player near the crease to actually control the biscuit.
For another, the Colorado player who most closely interacts with Lindgren in banging at the loose puck, Mikko Rantanen, admitted to reporters he “knew right away I didn’t touch (the puck) … I hit his stick on his backhand and it went in. I don’t know if that’s possession for him. I know it’s not my goal, but maybe there should be an assist.”
At game speed, it sure appeared to be an Avs goal that would award MacKinnon a helper point. Yet once you slow it down and apply NHL rule 78.4, it’s clearer why the league decided it wouldn’t overturn the initial decision.
The penultimate bullet point of 78.4 specifically states that an “own goal” credits the goal to the last offensive player to touch the puck — Toews, in this case — but that if it appears to be shot by a defensive player into his own net, “no assist shall be awarded.”
Replays show what appears to be either a botched backward pass to the goaltender or a terrible stab at a clearance by Lindgren, who more than likely swung at the puck to control its direction before the charging Rantanen could.
It ain’t right. Or even sensible. But by Jonas Johansson, it’s legal.
Rockies’ Opening Night — F
The Rox have lost by 15 or more runs just 11 times in their history. Two of those have taken place within the last 11 months. And four have occurred since the spring of 2019.
It’s not — and we’re speaking from what’s left of our hearts here — that Team GTW wants Buddy Black to fall on his sword. Quite the contrary. It’s that we wonder when said sword is going to decide it wants to fall on Buddy. Out of mercy as much as anything else.