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Rozner: NHL replay could have saved Vegas' Cup hopes

It's as bad a call as you're ever going to see.

There's just no hiding it - or hiding from it.

It was in fact so bad that the NHL - hardly known for its transparency - apologized to the Vegas Golden Knights.

It's the penalty the entire league is still talking about and it will be discussed for a very long time, especially given the number of first-round upsets and the path Vegas could see back to the Stanley Cup Final.

With 10:47 to play in Game 7 Tuesday night and with the Knights ahead 3-0, Cody Eakin lost a faceoff to the Sharks' Joe Pavelski and gave him a routine cross-check to the chest, something that occurs on every faceoff of every game.

It's not a minor penalty or even an afterthought.

Paul Stastny, close to Eakin and trying to fight through Pavelski to reach the shooting area, barely touched Pavelski in the process, but the Sharks' forward was horribly off balance, fell hard and hit his head on the ice.

It was bad luck for Pavelski. It was two normal hockey plays. It was, in other words, nothing.

Without minimizing the resulting injury, which you wouldn't wish on anyone, no referee is calling anything there in the first period of Game 7 of the regular season, let alone with 10 minutes left in Game 7 of a playoff series.

And there was no call - until the refs saw Pavelski on the ice, bleeding from the head.

That's when the officials got together and refs Dan O'Halloran and Eric Furlatt called the major and a game misconduct, giving San Jose a five-minute power play.

"It's a (bleeping) joke," said the Knights' Jonathan Marchessault. "It's embarrassing. That's what it is.

"He falls bad. It's unfortunate. I really hope he's OK and he comes back, but that call changes the whole outcome. It changes the whole future for us and the outcome of this year.

"Furlatt said, 'It looks pretty bad.' If it 'looks' pretty bad then clearly you did not see it. It's a joke. I would be embarrassed if I was them."

Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said one of the refs told him that Eakin hit Pavelski "in the face with the stick," which isn't even close to accurate.

Four officials missed the play, saw the blood and overreacted out of fear of the optics. Everyone feels bad for the injured player, but hockey can be dangerous and this was a fluke.

San Jose scored 4 power-play goals in less than four minutes and had the lead after being completely outplayed for 50 minutes.

Vegas tied it late, but lost in overtime. Their season is over.

"Last year we lost in the Stanley Cup Final," Gallant said. "Tonight was tougher than that, the way we lost that hockey game."

Vegas GM George McPhee said the NHL called the next morning and apologized for the penalty. Owner Bill Foley said the admission of guilt came from someone at the league "about as senior as you can get."

"Everyone saw the play and knows what happened," Eakin said. "We can't think about it anymore. Mistakes were made, but it's a fast game. That kind of stuff happens and that's all you can say about it."

It's unlikely to make them feel any better, but the refs were removed from Round 2 series assignments, including O'Halloran, who was on the ice the night of a brutal Blackhawks-Canucks game in March 2012 when he missed Daniel Sedin's headshot on Duncan Keith, leading to Keith's retaliation and a very violent game that got out of control.

What should not be forgotten in all of this is Vegas blew a 3-1 series lead and failed with three chances to end it. The Knights also could have killed that major penalty, or limited the damage.

They could have won the game in overtime. The opportunity was still there for them. The players don't get a free pass.

The other side of it is replay. A 10-second review would have removed the major penalty. The NHL had the guts to apologize, so maybe they would have done the right thing even in the injured player's home rink, even with a player helped off the ice and a bloody towel pressed to his head.

The NBA reviews flagrant fouls because of the damage it can do to a game or a series. The NHL must now consider the same for majors.

As for the Knights, until they win a Stanley Cup, it will be very hard to forget what was stolen from them this year because of a bad call.

"You always get better from losing like that," Gallant said. "It's tough to swallow, but I'm moving on. We're not going to make excuses."

The NHL can never make it right, but adding replay review for majors and game misconducts would at least be progress.

It's too late to help Vegas, but it's the right thing to do.

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