The Rangers are down 1-0 in their first-round series with the Penguins, losing game one and home ice advantage after a devastating loss to Pittsburgh and third-string goalie Louis Domingue in triple overtime.
But many Rangers fans erupted on social media before overtime even began, loudly protesting a goalie interference call that negated a go-ahead goal for the Blueshirts with just over three minutes left in the third period.
Kaapo Kakko had made contact with Penguins goalie Casey DeSmith, but Rangers fans felt strongly that the contact was due to Pittsburgh defenseman Brian Dumoulin pushing Kakko into his goaltender, leaving a wide open net for Filip Chytil to bury the go-ahead goal. But it was negated after a coach’s challenge, the Madison Square Garden crowd couldn’t believe it, and the game went into overtime. Then another. And another.
Afterward, the Rangers didn’t adamantly oppose the call, instead acknowledging that it could have gone either way.
“Obviously, you want those calls to go your way,” Ryan Strome said. “Game happens so fast, obviously he’s not trying to run into the goalie or anything. I thought it was a call that could go either way. It is what it is.
“It was a three-overtime game. You could look back on many small plays during the game. Obviously that one, we’d like it to go our way, but it was probably a 50/50 call.”
Strome’s head coach shared the exact same sentiment. He even admitted that he would like to say he had an issue with the call being overturned, but admitted it was a difficult one to argue.
“I’d like to say I do, but you know what, it was going the other way in a 3-3 hockey game and to me, it was 50/50 call and I sort of felt it was going to go against us,” Gallant said. “I can’t argue with that.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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