The Golden Knights entered Game 4 understanding they were playing against a desperate team, but they also knew they had a chance to all but bury the Sharks with a second consecutive road win. After taking a bit of time to get going early in Game 3, the Golden Knights came out looking like themselves to begin in Game 4.
Then, it all got flushed down the toilet when a line Vegas had bottled up all series, San Jose’s fourth, ran a play, and an illegal one at that, in which the Sharks have become synonymous with. Our buddy Sheng Peng from HockeyBuzz pointed the play out before the series. (Click through for a thorough breakdown of it)
Nate Schmidt said it was a ‘pick.’ Jon Merrill called it ‘subtle interference.’ Gerard Gallant offered, ‘It’s guys skating in front of other guys.’ -Sheng Peng, HockeyBuzz
As Marcus Sorensen skated from the red-line out, Eric Fehr heads back towards the red-line to cross up the defense. Legally, you can skate by, as long as there’s no contact. Here’s the play, you tell me if there’s contact.
It’s not legal doing that, so there’s nothing necessarily we can do. The refs just need to be aware, they were aware in the 2nd period and they called it, but the 1st period they got those two goals because of that and it’s unfortunate. The game moves fast for the refs too and that’s the way it went. -Jonathan Marchessault
