It was a play you don’t see very often in the National Hockey League.
In the first period of the Senators’ game against the New Jersey Devils at Canadian Tire Centre, winger Drake Batherson was down below the goal line, behind the Devils’ net, when the puck squirted toward him.
Instinctively, he tried to control the puck with his right skate. The puck then caromed off his blade toward the front of the net. However, because of where Devils goalie Jacob Markstrom was set up, the puck deflected off him and into the net.
Batherson and the Senators celebrated, but when the goal went to review, it was ruled that he had kicked the puck into New Jersey’s net, or by letter of the law, he had “made a distinct kicking motion.”
Sens Nation cried foul from several perspectives.
First, and this is the most obvious point, they believed there was no distinct kicking motion at all. Batherson had only turned his skate and redirected the puck, which players are allowed to do, even when scoring goals.
Second, they argued it wasn’t an attempt to score. So even if there was a distinct kicking motion, those are allowed all over the ice, as long as you’re not trying to score. It happens all the time, whether a player is passing to a teammate, or trying to clear the zone when they’ve lost their stick.
Batherson was down below the goal line, and it would have been an incredible display of mental processing and skill for him to be able to read the puck coming, know exactly where the goalie is, then intentionally punt a one timer in off Markstrom.
And every kicking motion has to have a follow through, right? Batherson somehow managed to pull this off without his skate ever moving in the goalie’s direction. It only ever moved toward the area behind the net.
What do you think? Should Batherson’s goal have counted or not? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Steve Warne
The Hockey News
