There are some penalties that really just make you scratch your head and say “whatttttttttttt?”
One of those instances took place tonight between the Minnesota Wild and Boston Bruins when Eric Staal was given a highly questionable penalty for ‘tripping’ Tukka Rask. But if you take another look, it was actually defenceman Zdeno Chara who tripped his own goaltender. The worst part of the whole thing is that Staal was very awkwardly hit into the boards from behind by Chara. It was all just very weird.
(That's Chara's stick in Rask's pads).
To make matter worse, Bruins forward Jake DeBrusk scored on the ensuing power-play and essentially sealed the game with his team’s third goal of the period. Boston eventually won the game 4-0.
There have been a couple of weird calls this season but one in particular rivals Staal’s as the strangest. Ironically enough, Monahan got a penalty for tying his skate at the faceoff circle against the Minnesota Wild late in the third period. Calgary went on to win the game but only by a single goal… could have been very costly.
The reality is that refs will make mistakes, they’re human. But you can’t help but feel bad for Staal after seeing this one.
Talk about some bad luck!
(H/T Conor Ryan)
