The Pittsburgh Penguins celebrate Sergei Gonchar goal as Toronto Maple Leafs' Nikolai Kulemin #41 skates away during game action against the Toronto Maple Leafs January 9, 2010 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Abelimages / Getty Images)Abelimages/Getty Images
There was no shortage of odd and mysterious happenings when the Toronto Maple Leafs extended their losing streak to three games against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night.
The really weird stuff in the Penguins' 4-1 win took place late in the second period but let's start with the sort-of-odd stuff first.
That came in the first period when the Leafs managed to do a couple of things they rarely do - both kill a penalty and score a power-play goal.
Of course, by then they had already handed the Penguins the lead, something they do pretty much every time they play anyone.
So, when Leaf defenceman Garnet Exelby took a clipping penalty at 11:05 of the first period it was pretty much a foregone conclusion the Penguins would soon be up by two, since coughing up a 2-0 lead is another Leaf specialty.
This time, though, the worst penalty killers in the NHL by a country mile were playing the worst power play in the league. As for how a team that boasts the likes of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar can come into the game with a feeble 14.4-per-cent power-play success rate, who knows?
But once the Leafs stuffed the Pens on the power play and then saw Matt Stajan score a power-play goal on a feed from Phil Kessel to tie the score, you knew this was going to be a strange night. And thank goodness for the strange stuff, because the game itself had all the excitement of having Stephen Harper play host to your hockey pool draft party.
The weirdness began late in the second period after the Leafs managed to kill off a second penalty to give rise to hopefulness among the crowd of 19,567 that a second upset of the defending Stanley Cup champions (they beat the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Dec. 27) was in the offing.
But then Leaf defenceman Jeff Finger was called for holding someone's stick at 14:05 and everybody stepped into The Twilight Zone.
On the Pittsburgh power play, defenceman Sergei Gonchar ripped a shot from the right point that beat Leaf goaltender Jonas Gustavsson but hit the iron crossbar. The sound pinged through the Air Canada Centre as the puck bounced straight out.
Next thing you know, Leaf winger Alexei Ponikarovsky had a shorthanded breakaway. But he couldn't score because Gonchar gave chase and hauled him down. One of the referees blew the whistle and emphatically signaled a penalty shot.
Not so fast, said the video judges, who called down to the referees.
While the crowd wondered what was going on, they told the refs that Gonchar's shot, which occurred about 15 seconds before Ponikarovsky's breakaway ended, was actually a goal.
The crossbar the puck hit was actually the back one inside the net.
Under NHL rules, in this case, they turn back time...Sort of.
Gonchar's shot was now a goal but the penalty shot called on him was waved off since it was called after his goal. But the rule said it now became a minor penalty for hooking so Gonchar headed for the penalty box. Had Ponikarovsky managed to score, though, it would not have counted.
As Leafs head coach Ron Wilson noted, the NHL rulebook does not exactly spell out what happens in that situation. However, these situations and more are covered in a casebook that every official gets at the start of the season.
"They have the referees' casebook and it's in there," Wilson said. "It's simple - you can't score two goals on the same play. But to me it's flawed logic."
Wilson says he understands the idea of not allowing two goals because the first goal, if it were caught in time, would have nullified the second one. What he doesn't get is turning the penalty shot into a minor to avoid the chance of having a second goal.
"Why not?" he said.
Then again, the chances of the scoring-challenged Leafs producing a goal on a penalty shot are slight, indeed.
About as slight as scoring on the power play, as the impotent Leafs could not produce a goal while Gonchar sat in the penalty box. Then, to really rub it in, Gonchar stepped out of the penalty box, skated to the exact spot where he scored from two minutes earlier, took a pass and drilled another slapshot to the same top corner to make it 3-1, Penguins.
Leaf defenceman Ian White was not inclined to call the situation bad karma or bad luck or a hockey curse.
"We've got to stop letting that happen," he said. "[Gonchar]got time to pick whatever corner he wanted."
The Leafs quietly called it a night after that. Sidney Crosby, who set up Bill Guerin's first period goal, slid the puck under Gustavsson early in the third to end any hope of a Leaf comeback.