After the Florida Panthers won Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final on Wednesday, their head coach was clearly in a good mood.
Paul Maurice, who is never shy to share his thoughts, even agreed with a controversial goaltender interference call that disallowed a Panthers goal.
With the Panthers leading 1-0 early in the third, they appeared to take a two-goal lead on an Oliver Ekman-Larsson shot. However, the Rangers would challenge the goal for goaltender interference on Panthers forward Ryan Lomberg, and after a lengthy review, the call on the ice was overturned.
“I thought it was right, because it was the call I would want on Sergei (Bobrovsky),” Maurice said. “The best goalies in the world need a bit of protection… Whoever is making that call, I thought they got it right. I wasn’t complaining about it.”
The league announced that video review determined that “Florida’s Lomberg entered the crease and made incidental contact with New York’s Igor Shesterkin, impairing his ability to play his position.”
The decision was made in accordance with part one of Rule 69.1 of the NHL rulebook which states “Goals should be disallowed only if: (1) an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal.”
After the game, Maurice agreed that Lomberg put himself in a bad spot.
“I don’t think there was any malice in what (Lomberg) did,” Maurice explained. “But you get in that deep in the crease, and then he is trying to get out and gets pushed I get all that, but you start that by starting in the crease fairly deep.”
It’s hard to say if Maurice would’ve sung the same tune if his team had come out on the other side of the scoreboard, but with his team now up 1-0 in the series, he was clearly in an agreeable mood.
