PASabreFan

I'd go with just. Let's imagine the Sabres score the same goal at the other end, leading the series 3-2, to seemingly win the Cup. The goal is taken off the board, and Dallas prevails in 7. Sabres fans study the memo, which comes precariously close to allowing Holzinger's goal, then watch as the league gets rid of the rule, learning that meetings IN BUFFALO during the final sealed the deal for the crease rule. Can you imagine?

The only fair thing will be for Dahlin and Owen to alternate Norris wins.

Don't play coy. I WANT THE TRUTH!

I don't really get the reference, but I suppose so. It's fascinating to think of the situation Lewis found himself in after a lifetime in the sport. Focus on the humanity of it and not bureaucratic protocols, the idea that the director of officiating, THE BIG BOSS, was supposed to sit by and watch Charlie Banfield provide information to the ref with zero context ("his skate was in the crease before the puck") and watch a Cup winning-goal get erased. You can't tell me when it came to the memo clarifications that's how the call was supposed to be made. Someone had to interpret that wording. And that should be the guy who wrote it. Turns out he got it wrong, but only because a clarification that should have been in the memo was understandably not imagined. Lewis' legacy was on the line, and he knew it. How did that turn out for him?

How many reviews akin to the Hull situation do you remember that season? I remember Varada or whoever on one side of the crease with a toe possibly on the line and the puck, shot by someone else, entering the crease on the other side. Those took a long time to figure out, given 1999 technology. The league wanted goals like Hull's to count. They weren't smart enough to figure out how to put it in writing. Lewis knew that. He also knew the rule was going away after the season. He also knew the crease rule was a travesty. On that fateful morn, he got to be judge, jury, executioner and keeper of the integrity of the Stanley Cup. He did his job well.

I am not often in sync with my fellow fans, but I am heartened that, this time around, there isn't fervor and excitement for a night like this. (Unless it's being discussed fervently and excitedly in a thread I haven't seen.)

Does the skull belong to a Leafs player, a Leafs fan or more representative of all Leafs Nation?

Darcy told the AP a day or two after the game that the Sabres received the memo. Thorne and Clement talked about seeing it. I'd like to know about similar goals being disallowed after the memo, which was sent in March. If my memory serves me right, it was a goal involving the scorer being in the crease that was disallowed that led to the memo. I don't think we all know this. There was a review. I never saw an apology. In fact Bettman went to Dallas and doubled-down. He even rode through the streets afterwards in an open limousine, quite confident.

Bryan Lewis said he and the video goal judge reviewed it. Yes, it was quick, and there was no announcement. The referees stood by the boards as per protocol until they were released. I remember seeing a video of the aftermath of the goal where you could see the refs skating away. I timed it but can't remember how long after the goal the decision must have been called down to the ice. It was under a minute for sure. Remember, Hull's skate was clearly in the crease. The long reviews during the season involved looking at whether non-scorer's skates were in the crease. Thanks to the memo, Lewis could make a very quick call. In his mind anyway, it wasn't a tough one.

Same here. I think it's a GIF. And skeletons can't move like that.

A woman is entitled to change her mind. I think everyone knows deep down it was a classic hockey goal and shouldn't have wiped out a Stanley Cup championship — nor should anyone want a Cup that results from that goal being waived off. We'd have the asterisk. Listen — there was no clarification to fit the situation. The league had the clarifications to prevent good goals from being wiped out. The premise was in place. All Lewis did was modify the best clarification ("control") a little to allow a good hockey goal to survive ("possession"). As he said, "it was his puck to play and score." GOAL.

How to do it? I've half-jokingly said to bring in a retired FBI profiler. Social media is a treasure trove.

I continue to maintain that almost no one (maybe literally no one, but certainly not nobody, who never posts here anymore) is thinking about whether these "top" players are good fits for this challenging hockey atmosphere. Adams and Granato have hinted at it. Hall's a top player, he's proving it in Boston. He couldn't hack it in Buffalo. We can impugne his character, but what if his reaction to being here is common? Find me three or four good hockey players who want to skate into hell and help carry the franchise and the fans out of it. I'm OK with losing the trade on paper.

He played the puck not once but twice, then kicked the puck onto his stick before entering the crease. Now lock it.

How can the food in a state be either good or bad? Stereotype much?

Yes, they have followed the same path. And, no, they haven't changed. The path has been marked by not hiring a POHO (at least not one with any power) and not hiring experienced GMs, and not getting out of the way of the people they do hire. Firing people when the setup inevitably fails isn't evidence they're changing anything but the business cards.

It's actually Busch League, I am shocked to learn. The beer company sponsored a rival baseball league in the 1930s, and the level of play was such an abject failure, the term Busch League entered the lexicon as a pejorative for a second-rate collection of so-called athletes.

It's one that will make him untold millions. Do you think that fight/those fights happened by accident?

Wait just a second... Nah. What makes her smart?

Oh, no, not the dastardly Bruins with that monster Marchand. No thanks.

It was an awesome rant. Trophy wife is more of a comment on Terry, I think. And I'm not sure who's doing the grasping. Ultimately, when you come in and near-destroy a cherished community treasure because you're trying to prove something to yourself or society/you have an ego as deep as the Marcellus Shale, all bets are off. Making mistakes is one thing. Continuing to do so is unforgivable. No benefit of the doubt is granted, no respect is due.

What is wrong with you?

Hot take: Hall's posture at the end of the season was a more principled one than Reinhart's. Hall thinks of himself as a team-first guy and there was absolutely nothing to play for, his disappointment so profound he couldn't function; he wasn't about to go out and put on a display of passion in the name of nothing, scoring a bunch of meaningless goals. I'll listen and hang up.