I missed Nikki asking about this on IM
Mar. 27th, 2008 12:56 amTo explain how the game ended:
After the Jackets went up 4-0, Chicago was clearly getting desperate and trying to pin the Jackets in to their end so that they could try to pull Khabibulin as much as possible.
At 1 minute to go, they finally succeeded in trapping the puck in, and Khabibulin started to leave for the bench when Zherdev got sprung from the zone with the puck and headed for the Chicago net like a bullet. Khabibulin was at about the top of the circles at that point. (IMPORTANT)
He then -came up the ice- to meet Zherdev just inside the Chicago blueline and made a play on the puck (and slammed into Z like a ton of bricks, too).
Because Khabibulin left the crease -and- played the puck from above the circles, instead of either trying to fall back or get to the bench, he was supposed to be given a penalty. Instead, they whistled the play down and I don't know exactly what the decision was made (possibly something along the lines of "Look, there's only 14 seconds left, and why kick them when they're down), but instead of Chicago getting a penalty, they just did the faceoff to the left of Khabibulin, and play ended almost right after the puck was dropped.
After the Jackets went up 4-0, Chicago was clearly getting desperate and trying to pin the Jackets in to their end so that they could try to pull Khabibulin as much as possible.
At 1 minute to go, they finally succeeded in trapping the puck in, and Khabibulin started to leave for the bench when Zherdev got sprung from the zone with the puck and headed for the Chicago net like a bullet. Khabibulin was at about the top of the circles at that point. (IMPORTANT)
He then -came up the ice- to meet Zherdev just inside the Chicago blueline and made a play on the puck (and slammed into Z like a ton of bricks, too).
Because Khabibulin left the crease -and- played the puck from above the circles, instead of either trying to fall back or get to the bench, he was supposed to be given a penalty. Instead, they whistled the play down and I don't know exactly what the decision was made (possibly something along the lines of "Look, there's only 14 seconds left, and why kick them when they're down), but instead of Chicago getting a penalty, they just did the faceoff to the left of Khabibulin, and play ended almost right after the puck was dropped.