Penguins administer their own justice after Sýkora’s trickery

It’s a nightmare situation for any referee: a player who should be sitting in the penalty box has just scored a short-handed goal. This exact situation happened during an NHL game between the New Jersey Devils and Pittsburgh Penguins on October 22. The Devils pulled a fast one on the officials and scored an unfair tying goal.

Patrik Eliáš (left) and Petr Sýkora, shown here after

the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals. Photo: sport.cz.

The goal scorer who was supposed to be in the penalty box was Patrik Eliáš, the Devils star veteran. Eliáš was penalized when his high stick struck Pittsburgh’s Steve Sullivan in the face. Because Sullivan suffered a bloody gash, New Jersey’s number 26 was sent to the box.

At that moment, a 34-year-old veteran Petr Sýkora, Eliáš’s long-time friend and linemate, had an idea that he thought would help his team. He tricked the officials and went to the penalty box to serve a double minor penalty for his teammate’s foul.

Despite loud protests from Pittsburgh, the referees let the game go on and, 70 seconds later, Eliáš scored a goal to tie the game at 1.

After the game, Sýkora explained his actions, stating that he wanted to help his team. "It was disrespectful to the referee on my part, but I didn't want to have Eliáš go to the penalty box for four minutes," Sýkora said on the NHL’s website.

“I just got the idea, and it worked out and Eliáš actually got a goal there. After that, the referee came up to me. He wasn't happy and I apologized to him,” he added.

The question is why Sýkora apologized to the referee if he knew what he was doing, but the main thing is that justice did not remain blind. Actually, the Penguins played as if they were intent on administering their own justice and scored three goals in the third period to win 4-1.

Because they won the game, the Pittsburgh players didn’t show any anger about the incident. "You could see it pretty clearly it was the wrong guy in the box," said the Penguins goalie Marc-André Fleury to nhl.com, "but I guess it turned out alright in the end."

The wording of the rules:

If the same situation were to occur in any European league or IIHF tournament, no goal should be allowed, according to Rule 562 of the IIHF rulebook:

562 - PLAYERS LEAVING THE PENALTY OR PLAYERS BENCH
…1. If a player shall illegally enter the game from his own player's bench or from the penalty bench by his own error or the error of the Penalty Bench Attendant, any goal scored by his own team shall be disallowed, while he is illegally on the ice, but all penalties imposed to both teams shall be served….

Unfortunately, the NHL rulebook does not have any similar provision in the case where a player scores a goal while he should be in the penalty box. Still, it seems that the officiating failed at some point, because the referees had informed the official scorer that Eliáš was the player who should serve double-minor penalty, but nobody corrected the situation before play resumed. The closest applicable rule states:

70.4 Leaving the Penalty Bench
…In the case of a player returning to the ice before his time has expired through an error of the Penalty Timekeeper, he is not to serve an additional penalty, but must serve his unexpired time. …

This rule deals with leaving the penalty bench prematurely due to an error by the  penalty timekeeper’s error, not a situation where the wrong player is in the box from the beginning.

However, this incident demonstrates the NHL’s need to change, or at least clarify, the rule. Fortunately, in this case, the incident did not affect the final score and the Penguins won the game, but hopefully steps are taken to ensure no similar goal is allowed in future.

4 Czech teams still in contention for European Trophy

All teams were in action on Saturday in the European Trophy, as positioning starts to become clearer. Most teams have now played six of their eight games, with the top two teams in each group advancing to the Red Bull Salute in December.

Prague's two teams did little to help their causes, each losing on home ice to cement their positions at the bottom of the North Division. At Tesla Arena, Sparta was scored on four times in the second period and fell 4-2 to visiting Jokerit Helsinki. The Finnish club was particularly dominant during a 10-minute stretch in the second where Sparta failed to register a shot on goal, and had numerous chances of their own to build up a commanding lead. Sparta came back strong in the third and scored twice, but it was too little, too late. Meanwhile, across town in Eden, Slavia and Helsinki IFK went to a shootout tied 2-2, where Mikael Granlund provided the heroics for the visitors. No stranger to providing highlight-reel goals, Granlund beat goaltender Dominik Furch with a move similar to the one used by Peter Forsberg in the 1994 Olympics to secure the victory.

Four other Czech teams in action on Saturday, however, are still in contention for positions in the Red Bull Salute, the eight-team event in Austria that will determine the winner of the European Trophy.

In České Budějovice, Jakub Kovář made 18 saves as Mountfield shut out the Vienna Capitals 4-0. The win allowed them to leap-frog over Plzeň 1929 into second place in the East Division. Plzeň picked up only a single point as they fell to visiting Slovan Bratislava 5-4 in a shootout. The home team trailed 4-1 midway through the game before scoring three in a row to force overtime. They were led in a losing cause by two goals from Radek Duda and two assists each from Martin Straka and Petr Sýkora. As Mountfield and Plzeň each have two games in hand on division-leading Slovan, they could both conceivably qualify for the Red Bull Salute.

HC Pardubice sits in top spot in the South Division with 12 points, two ahead of HV71 and three ahead of Adler Mannheim. This comes after beating rival Kometa Brno 5-4. Martin Bartek scored the game-winner with 2:07 remaining in regulation time. Pardubice and HV71 each have two games remaining, while Mannheim has three. The loss relegates Kometa to last in the division with five points.

Bílí Tygři Liberec sits in fourth place in the South with seven points, but remain in contention because they have two games in hand on most other teams. They helped their cause on Saturday night by taking two points in Linkoping, with veteran Petr Nedvěd scoring the shootout winner.

Liberec is back in action on Sunday in Oulu against Kärpät, while Plzeň, Brno and Pardubice all host Finnish clubs. The Kometa Brno-Jokerit Helsinki game can be seen at 18:00 CET on ČT4 or online at ct24.cz/sport. All games can be followed live online at europeantrophy.com/schedule.php.