Felger & Mazz: Thoughts on the goaltender interference non-call…again
There was once again a close call when it comes to goaltender interference in the Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers series. This time the Bruins came out on the beneficial side of the call and Felger and Mazz gave their thoughts on the call.
Did the Bruins catch a break?
Felger: Do you think Bruins got a break last night?
Mazz: Not necessary. I mean, a little bit of one. Sure. Yes, a little bit. And I’ll tell you why, just like the game before I’ll say the same thing, I could have seen it called either way. It’s sort of in the gray area there. And the reason I say in the gray area, I think I even put in the email exchange this morning, in my opinion, in my gut, I thought, well, in some ways this is more worthy of interference than the other one because of the stick and the stick hitting his pad, meaning Bobrovsky’s pad and skate. I’ve seen that flipped over for that reason. It feels like anytime you start affecting the goalies positioning, whether it’s his skae or his pad and you move him with that stick, they call that or the can call that and it feels to me like you see interference there a lot. Now, that said, I’m glad they didn’t. And under the circumstances, I thought they were going to have a hard time making that call last night.
Felger: Why?
Mazz: Because of what happened in the game before.
Felger: Okay. Isn’t that kind of a break?
Mazz: Yes.
Felger: Because you’re not really judging it on the merits of the play. You’re judging it on the context of, “oh God, what if we take this off the board?”
Mazz: Right. So I do think on some level that help the Bruins. Some level meaning game four helped them in game five. Because I think the league looked at it and said, “okay, we’re not going to take another one away from Boston. We’re going to even this thing out right now because this one’s on the gray side, too. And so, you know what? Let’s give one to Boston here. One to one, you guys are even. We’re off the hook. Just play.” And again I’m not telling you it deliberately went down like that, but I think something like that.
Felger: So in other words, if the Bruins hadn’t gotten quote unquote porked to the other night, don’t you think they would have taken that one off the board last night? Or they were more likely to?
Mazz: Yes, more likely for sure.
Felger: And so, I just think it’s so delicious that of course the very next game you get the same call, which I think, and I’m gonna have more on this later, I think is a problem for the league. It is such a thorny call, and they’ve been grappling with it for years.
