Vegas coach Pete DeBoer and Colorado coach Jared Bednar had opposite opinions of the slashing call on Golden Knights winger Reilly Smith only 44 seconds into overtime Wednesday night.
The Avs took advantage with Mikko Rantanen’s power play goal to cap a 3-2 Game 2 win.
DeBoer: “Just a soft call.”
Bednar: “In that situation, I would want that called.”
The faceoff was to the right of Avalanche goalie Philipp Grubauer. After the puck was dropped, Rantanen tried to make a bee-line toward defenseman Alec Martinez. But his path was impeded and stick knocked from his hands by Smith.
One minute, 23 seconds later, Rantanen scored the winner on a wrist shot from the right circle, setting off an Avalanche celebration at one end of the ice and Smith shaking his head as he left the penalty box.
DeBoer focused his ire on the Avalanche players, not referees Jean Hebert and Chris Lee.
“I can’t even blame the referees because they’re fighting through the embellishment of grabbing your face or falling down or dropping your stick every period,” DeBoer said. “They fooled them on that.”
Bednar, naturally, saw it differently.
“I think that’s an easy one to call for me because (Smith) didn’t have to do it and if Mikko is going out to the point and the puck is out there and he knocks the stick out of hands and doesn’t have it, it could end up in our net going the other way because he’s going out there without a stick against a skilled d-man and it’s going to create a chance coming that way,” he said.
Vegas captain Mark Stone said the “onus” is on Rantanen to hold on to his stick in that situation.
“It’s a tough call,” Stone said. “I mean, it’s a stick battle off a faceoff. I probably go into 30 of those per game and get my stick slashed in almost every one and I don’t drop my stick. It’s a tough call, especially in OT.”
The Knights were called for six minors in Game 2 — one delay of game, two holding and three slashing penalties.
“Six kills tonight — (a) power play like that, they’re going to burn you,” Stone said.
The Avs were 2-of-6 on the power play and 2-of-3 on the penalty kill.
“I thought (the officials) were pretty consistent in what they called,” Bednar said. “(Alex) Newhook got called for wrapping up a guy and they got called right after that for wrapping up a guy in the corner. And you can tell they were calling the slashes.”
Footnotes. The Avalanche did not practice Friday before flying to Las Vegas for Game 3 on Friday (8 p.m.) and Game 4 on Sunday (6:30 p.m.). … All but one of the 17 Golden Knights skaters (center Nicolas Roy) had at least one shot on goal in Game 2. … Avs center Tyson Jost broke a 1-1 tie in the first with his second goal of the postseason. “It was a great play by (defenseman Sam Girard),” Jost said on Thursday. “It was something we’ve worked on and he made a great pass and put it in my wheelhouse and I tried to get the shot off — I didn’t have much time — and it found the back of the net.” … Vegas winger Ryan Reaves will serve the second of his two-game suspension Friday for roughing Avs defenseman Ryan Graves.
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Vegas coach Pete DeBoer on OT penalty that led to Avalanche win: “Just a soft call” - The Denver Post
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