Garnet Hathaway got sent to the box for goalie interference Saturday, and the Florida Panthers had every right to be annoyed.
Tampa Bay netminder Dennis Hildeby came out of his crease looking for contact. He found it, and the Panthers forward paid the price.
Jameson Olive wasn't having it. "Oof, not a fan of this call," he posted. "Hildeby tries to draw contact, and does."
So who's actually at fault when a goalie wanders into traffic? The rulebook protects goaltenders, but it was never meant to reward them for hunting a whistle.
In the clip, Hildeby drifts out of his blue paint and steps into Hathaway's path, and the contact that follows goes against the skater.
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It was a bad call, plain and simple. A goalie leaving his crease to initiate contact should be the one explaining himself.
Dennis Hildeby left his crease looking for contact and found it
It's a pedestrian stepping in front of a parked car and filing an insurance claim. Technically there was contact, but nobody believes the car started it.
Tampa Bay won the game 3-2 in a shootout. Jon Cooper's club got the better of Paul Maurice's group after losing 5-3 on Thursday.
Hathaway played 12:22 in that Thursday win. He didn't register a point, but calls like Saturday's are the ones that stick with a bench.
Hildeby has had a busy camp of his own. He went 62:33 in Tuesday's loss past regulation in Nashville, stopping 23 of 26.
He also knows how to sell it, apparently. Officials are supposed to see through that.
Florida finished the preseason 2-0-2. The Panthers open the regular season Tuesday in Carolina.
Bill Zito didn't build a roster around Aleksander Barkov's $10,000,000 cap hit to drop games on calls like this one.
The Panthers and Lightning meet for real on November 28 in Florida.
If officials keep rewarding goalies for drifting into traffic, more of them will start doing it. And Hathaway won't be the last skater left wondering what he was supposed to do.
Was Garnet Hathaway robbed on that goalie interference call?
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