The Pittsburgh Penguins lost yet another goaltender interference challenge Thursday night against the Buffalo Sabres. It was their seventh such result in as many tries.

After the ruling, ESPN cameras at PPG Paints Arena caught defenseman Kris Letang giving a blunt response to the officials.

“Hey! Hey! What the (expletive) are you guys watching?”

If you are offended by lip reading, avert your eyes.

Eventually, what the NHL claimed their officials watched was Letang pushing Buffalo’s Josh Doan into goaltender Artus Silovs. Thus creating the contact on Silovs.

Thus negating any claim to goaltender interference.

Thus allowing Josh Norris’ goal to stand as called on the ice.

Thus giving Buffalo a 2-1 lead they’d never relinquish en route to a 5-1 victory.

Did Letang shove Norris into Silovs? Yeah, he did.

Did Doan make any effort to avoid the goalie or extricate himself from the crease once he felt the contact? No, he didn’t.

Have the Penguins been victims of a goal being taken off the board for far less contact than that recently? Yes, they have.

Is figuring out NHL goaltender interference even more cumbersome than attempting to determine what is or isn’t a catch in the NFL? If it ain’t, it’s close.

Regardless, coach Dan Muse seemed pretty sure that his team got the wrong end of that call Thursday night.

“Their player skated into the blue paint, made contact with our goalie, which affected the play, which is the rule,” Muse said. “He came in and made contact. Afterwards, there’s a little bit of a push (from Letang). (Doan) initiated the contact. So, by the rules of goalie interference, I still feel like it’s goalie interference. It seems like it changes day to day right now. People can question some of the challenges I’ve made. There have been lower-percentage (challenges). This one I thought was pretty clear.”

The Pens spiraled from there, allowing two more goals over the next seven minutes, including their second shorthanded goal of the night.

“Need to do a little bit better job managing our emotions in that situation. But it’s hard to dig out,” winger Bryan Rust said. “I don’t think we’ve had a lot of fortunate calls from referees with things like that this year, which (stinks). That’s not an excuse, but I think we just have to be a lot better having a little bit of a thicker skin.”

Silovs said the dipping emotions may have been a cumulative effect from all of the failed goalie challenges they’ve had this year, along with their own goals that have been erased due to opposite interpretations.

“For sure. It happens too many times. We score, it was goalie interference. They score, it’s fine. I don’t know what a goalie interference is in this league. I have no idea,” Silovs said.

At one point during Thursday night’s interview session, Silovs was asked if he thought the league does a good enough job explaining what goalie interference is.

“I don’t really know,” Silovs replied. “To me, it doesn’t really make sense.”

 

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Personally, I think the league does a fine job explaining the rule. The explanation highlighted above is very clear.

How and when those guidelines are applied, though, appear to be completely random, utterly haphazard and remarkably inconsistent.

The only consistent point appears to be that Muse never wins a challenge. Is that a case of the NHL replay room never giving a rookie head coach a break? You know, kinda like how on-ice officials tend to put young players through the wringer when it comes to whistles?

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“I am not familiar with how the refs handle that,” Rust said with a wry smirk. “But, who knows?”

Maybe I should’ve asked Letang that question. Based on his reaction from the bench, perhaps I could’ve gotten a response that was a little less … ummm … edited.