The Coyotes dropped a heartbreaker to the Washington Capitals on Monday, and in many ways it was just a simple 3-2 loss. But Louis Domingue, the Arizona goalie, had some interesting things to say after the loss.
First off, let’s take a look at the goal that provided the margin of victory: A Mike Richards goal which happened after Domingue thought he had the puck covered:
Distressing in itself, but Domingue thinks he didn’t get the whistle for covering the puck because he doesn’t have enough service time in the league.
“I’m expecting that they treat every guy the same way, and I felt like because I don’t have many games in this league I’m being treated differently,” said Domingue, who finished with 31 saves. The 23-year-old rookie dropped to 12-10-4 since joining the Coyotes from the minors after No.1 Mike Smith underwent surgery on a core muscle injury in mid-December.
“I think that if (Capitals goalie Braden) Holtby would have covered the puck this way, they would have blew the whistle right away.
“All game it was the same thing. I didn’t have the whistle. It happened before in the third. I’m asking them, and they don’t have a reply. I don’t think I’m a guy that was fighting the puck tonight. I think I had control of every puck and to me, it’s just unacceptable that they don’t treat us the same way.”
The issue that I would have with this is that things happen so fast in hockey that there wouldn’t be enough time for a referee to think about who has what amount of service time before making a call or not making a call. It isn’t like a baseball umpire who understands who is on the mound and how he likes to work. Tom Glavine always got more strike calls than some rookie pitcher. In this case? I’m not sure there’s an extra layer of nefariousness going on here. Although I wouldn’t put anything past referees in any sport, these kind of whistles or lack of whistles happen so inconsistently to think that there’s some sort of caste system in terms of which goalies get quicker whistles.
