Just watched postgame video shot by the Tampa Tribune and Lightning coach Guy Boucher was, um, a bit annoyed at referee Tom Kowal’s decision to waive off a goal by Vinny Lecavalier in the third period of an eventual 2-1 shootout loss to the Caps. It always makes me laugh to listen to these rants by coaches. Boucher insisted he had just watched the video and it was obvious to anyone with a brain that Brooks Laich tripped Tampa Bay forward Marty St. Louis and sent him into Washington goalie Braden Holtby, who he never touched anyway. A complete injustice.
Hey, he might be right. I’m scared enough of Guy Boucher and his raging intensity at this point to just agree with whatever he says. But Bruce Boudreau gave the absolute opposite opinion in his postgame scrum with the media down in Tampa and I am 100% sure he will spend the rest of the season telling us that the refs got the call correct. I understand it’s competition, but the two coaches aren’t even on the same planet when discussing that play.
Here are links to the Tribune’s web site and its video of both Boucher and St. Louis. And here is Boudreau on the Caps’ official site. An excerpt from both men:
“[St. Louis] never touched the goalie,” Boucher said. “It’s their player’s stick. If it’s not a goal it has to be a penalty. It’s a major tripping. If it’s a goal it’s 2-0 and that’s probably the game…It was a good honest goal…We have it right there on video. That’s it. It’s the wrong call period.”
Any response Bruce?
“Well, it was disallowed. It was interference,” Boudreau said. “I thought it should have been a penalty because [St. Louis] touched [Holtby]. He didn’t not just prevent him from making the move, but I thought he touched him, which I thought was goalie interference. Either way it was no goal.”
So one guy says he has absolute video proof the call was wrong and the other thinks the goal should have been disallowed AND Tampa deserved a penalty, too. And they both had benefit of slow-motion television replays. I love sports.
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