Lightning falls shy by mere inches

By EDUARDO A. ENCINA, Times Staff Writer
Published November 22, 2007

The Lightning's Vinny Lecavalier fights off Fedor Tyutin while controlling the puck during the first period.
	[Dirk Shadd | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Dirk Shadd | Times] Johan Holmqvist made 27 saves for the Lightning, but this shot by Colton Orr gets by him to put the Rangers up 2-0.

TAMPA - As the puck slid over the goal line, it disappeared under a glove. Once it emerged, the only thing revealed was controversy.

At the time, with the Lightning trailing 2-0 in the final four minutes, a negated goal off the stick of Vinny Prospal didn't seem to matter much. But by the end of a 2-1 loss to the Rangers on Wednesday at the St. Pete Times Forum, it was all anybody could talk about.

Hendrik Lundqvist - who made 32 saves - shut out the Lightning for the first 59 minutes, but a goal with 16.7 seconds left made the earlier no-goal pivotal.

Few had answers - only questions and confusion after another frustrating Lightning loss.

"I thought we played hard enough," forward Marty St. Louis said. "You can't get too down. We have to bounce back. As long as we come out with the effort we did (Wednesday), I'm not worried about this team."

It might have been different. Prospal's wrister with 3:28 left found Lundqvist's pad but slid between his legs and slowly reached the goal line. That's when the Rangers' Brendan Shanahan reached for the puck and covered it with the glove, prompting a whistle and a no-goal call from referee Rob Martell.

That's where is got dicey. Rule 67.4 says: "If a player, except a goalkeeper, while play is in progress, falls on the puck, holds the puck, picks up the puck, or gathers the puck into his body or hands from the ice in the goal crease area, the play shall be stopped immediately and a penalty shot shall be awarded."

Nothing of the sort occurred, even after a video review at league headquarters in Toronto. Because the puck disappeared under Shanahan's glove, the evidence to overturn the call wasn't there even after viewing both teams' TV feeds.

"The ruling from here was inconclusive," said Mike Murphy, the vice president of hockey operations. "I lost sight of the puck on the overhead view. You can't speculate. We make decisions here on what we see and only on what we see."

As for what Shanahan saw?

"I really think it was about halfway over the line. It was on its way, but it didn't cross over the entire goal line."

Lightning coach John Tortorella, who earlier in the day received a $10,000 fine for criticizing league officiating after an overtime loss Monday night, could only shrug, his team a victim of circumstance.

"I think it was the right call that it was blown dead because it was covered up, but I thought it was pretty plain that it was covered up with the glove, a regular player's glove," Tortorella said. "I think we needed to go another step here. I'm not criticizing, just stating what I saw as the coach of this hockey club."

"I thought we played a good game. I thought we played hard. I thought we played right on through. I thought we competed. We just couldn't get it through."

Or past the glove.

[Last modified November 22, 2007, 00:13:47]