The Toronto Maple Leafs lost in peculiar fashion Thursday night.
With just under seven minutes remaining in the third period of Thursday’s game against Carolina, Hurricanes defenseman Ron Hainsey went to make a pass up ice, however he missed his intended target. As the puck slid into the Leafs’ end, linesman Don Henderson waved off the icing call (as some of you have pointed out, the Hurricanes forward appeared ahead of the Leafs defenseman at the faceoff dots).
The puck somehow found its way into the net, much to the surprise of Toronto netminder Jonathan Bernier.
“It puts more onus on refs. It makes their job tougher (and) we have to understand that. There will be calls like that,” said Leafs defenseman Cody Franson, as per Mark Masters of TSN.
From NHL.com, here is an interpretation of the new rule:
The topic of hybrid icing has brought about plenty of discussion; it was implemented for the pre-season and then approved for the beginning of the regular season.
Below are some of the conflicting opinions from earlier in the exhibition schedule:
Washington Capitals forward Jason Chimera: “I hate it.”
L.A. Kings head coach Darryl Sutter: “The [old] rule’s fine...I don’t know why, quite honest, why we…change it. The rule’s fine. I know everybody thinks, they say, ‘Oh, this guy got hurt,’ or ‘this guy got hurt.’ You can count on one hand how many in the last five years. The players are very respectful of the rule now. We keep wanting to put rules in just because somebody wants to say, ‘I made this rule. It was my rule.’ I’m not for that at all.”
Senators defenseman Marc Methot: “I know it’s going to be hard for linesmen because they have to make a lot of judgment calls and I’m sure they’re going to take a lot of heat from coaches, but that’s the game. And if you can protect the players as far as I’m concerned you’re making the right call.”