Counting to 7 Is Hard For NHL Officials

Remember Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final when Pittsburgh managed to skate with six men on the ice for about 20 seconds, while none of the on-ice officials noticed it? Well, we had a replay of it on Thursday night in the Montreal vs. Colorado game. Only Montreal played with seven players.

With the Canadiens trailing, 3-2, and desperately trying to tie the score in their home opener, goaltender Carey Price went to the bench in favor of the extra attacker, which coincided with defenseman Hal Gill coming out of the penalty box. Instead of going to the bench, Gill remained on the ice and joined the play. The result? A 7-on-5 power play to close out the game.

Video, of course, after the jump.

This comes from NHL.com's game highlights with the focus intended for Craig Anderson's save on Tomas Plekanec, but as you can clearly see on the video, the Canadiens have seven players on the ice, which is, obviously, one more than they're allowed in that situation.



Too many men on the ice calls get missed all the time and nobody makes a big deal about it after the fact, usually because they happen so fast they rarely have much of an impact on the game. But given the situation (the closing seconds of a one-goal game) and the fact there are seven guys on the ice, that's a pretty big call for the men in stripes to miss. Fortunately for the Avs, the missed call didn't hurt them as they managed to hold on for the 3-2 win, improving to 5-1-1 on the season.

Just in case you missed it on the video, here's a still-frame found at the always on-the-ball Hockey's Future message boards.