“It was a garbage goal. It was a GARBAGE WIN.”

As also reflected in our comments, the tying goal in last night’s Anaheim/Edmonton game was extremely controversial, because Ryan Kesler appeared to be holding Cam Talbot’s pad as Rakell’s shot was going in. And, certainly, Oilers fans are 1)right to be frustrated with the call, and 2)right that Kesler is a massive douche. Combined with a non-call in Game 4, this has caused many Oilers fans (including some paid ones) to conclude that the superior team is down in the series only because it’s getting hosed by the refs. This is silly, as I’ll come back to in a second, but first NFL fans might be interested to know that we would seem to have a tuck rule (i.e. correct or at least plausible interpretation of a dumb rule) situation rather than an outright bad call:

We totally know what goalie interference is.

It’s right there, in Rule 69 (nice):

If an attacking player has been pushed, shoved, or fouled by a defending player so as to cause him to come into contact with the goalkeeper, such contact will not be deemed contact initiated by the attacking player for purposes of this rule, provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such contact.

As McLellan said, Kesler was shoved into Talbot. According to the current rules, that’s it. Full stop.

The rule doesn’t address when a player needs to leave the crease after having been pushed into it, or what the call is if that player holds down the goalie’s pad after he’s shoved on top of him. The current rulebook doesn’t address it. For all we know, Kesler could have taken out a shank and rapid-fire stabbed Talbot in the crease, and it wouldn’t be goalie interference. Although we imagine that’s a misconduct. Probably, like, for slashing.

(And frankly, that’s more of a Corey Perry move than Kesler.)

Indeed, this is worse than the tuck rule, because at least the NFL came up with a fairly clear if stupid rule as applied to the apparent Brady fumble. The NHL rulebook just doesn’t address what is a not-terribly-unusual situation at all. But the call is not obviously wrong. It certainly shouldn’t have counted, but the ineptitude is more the NHL GMs rather than the refs of last night’s game.

Anyway, whether it’s a bad call or a bad rule, Oilers fans aren’t wrong to be pissed off at the play. But — and I know I consider the Ducks the marginally lesser evil in this series, but I said the same thing to my fellow Seahawks fans after Super Bowl XL — the idea that a team loses a game because of a single call is always bullshit. This game is an excellent illustration of this. After all, had the refs not missed a blatant Maroon high stick Edmonton wouldn’t have had a 3-goal lead in the first place. And had the Oilers been able to execute a simple breakout play right before the Rakell goal we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Indeed, the Oilers are vulnerable to this kind of comeback because while they have enough speed and skill up front to be terrifying when their transition game is going, in part because they have a decent second pairing defenseman miscast as a top-paring guy (Larsson) and a seventh defenseman miscast as a second-pairing guy (Russell), they’re prone to getting pinned in their own zone, especially by a good forechecking team like Anaheim.

Still, I might have more sympathy if Edmonton was clearly the better team yesterday. This…was not the case:

You can look up the data yourself, but Anaheim has controlled play for most of the series, although only by similar margins in Game 2. Only luck and Talbot have kept the series alive. The teams are a lot closer in quality than they looked last night, and I expect Edmonton to be a lot better Sunday. But the idea that Edmonton has been kicking Anaheim’s ass and are down 3-2 only because of the officials is about as credible as Donald Trump’s claim that he really won the popular vote.