Photo credit: @lh.photography15/Instagram
In Thursday’s game against the Washington Capitals, the Detroit Red Wings’ camera hole in Little Caesars Arena caught a goal that left the Capitals staff agape.
In Little Caesars Arena on Thursday, the Detroit Red Wings succumbed to the will of the Washington Capitals in a 4-3 overtime loss. Despite their best efforts, the Original Six teams forced their chances late in the third, scoring two goals, earning a point, and forcing the Capitals’ hand.
Their consecutive goals in the third brought the team back from a 3-1 deficit, with 1:40 left in the last period of the game. McLellan utilized a 6-5 man advantage on the ice, and the camera hole goal that followed baffled the Capitals’ coaching staff.
“It was an odd game. It really was,” Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan said.
The Red Wings player who benefited from an odd bounce was Alex DeBrincat, who is on pace for 43 goals this season.
The puck would be dumped in by DeBrincat, where it went off the glass and bounced into the net past a besieged goaltender, Charlie Lindgren.
Detroit Red Wings’ Alex DeBrincat camera-hole goal stuns even himself
“Just tried to rim it around,” DeBrincat said after the game. “I’m not sure what it hit, maybe the dasher or whatever. I saw it come off and go off something, and I knew it had a chance to go in. Those ones are pretty tricky. Obviously, a lucky bounce.”
“A lot of credit to [my teammates] and some credit to those bounces I get today,” DeBrincat said, smirking.
However, Spencer Carberry, the Washington Capitals head coach, was awestruck with the call of it being a “good bounce.” When it was dumped in, the puck struck the camera controlled by the photographer.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Carbery said. “For people who don’t know, there’s a camera hole that’s covered up with plexiglass in the corner so people can take live pictures without the glass in the way. So we have it in the slo-mo (video), he opens the hole to put his camera through, then sees the puck is getting rimmed around, and goes, ‘Uh oh!’
“There’s basically a thing that slides in to close that hole, and it hits right there, and the piece that slides there goes exploding behind the person. I don’t know if you’ll ever see that again in that situation. It goes directly into the net.”
Defenseman John Carlson would attempt to force a change in the ruling by arguing with NHL officials, but it survived review. Utlimately the ruling disappointed Carberry who gave us more insight into the legality of the goal itself:
“The league just said — I think the actual rule is, if the camera is through and then it’s obstructing, and it goes past the goalie, they’d call it back,” Carbery explained. “But because it was just the glass open or partially open, that it’s a good goal.”
The Detroit News’ own David Guralnick was operating in the hole when the puck was dumped in and struck the hole, knocking glass into his lap. The resulting action afterwards saw the puck slip by Lindgren.
The action itself is upsetting for Capitals coaches and players, but this is another one where we might see some traction in the future in a general managers meeting, considering the fuss that is surrounding this.
Previously on Detroit Hockey Insider
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Detroit Red Wings camera-hole goal leaves the Washington Capitals coaching staff baffled
Do you think forward Alex DeBrincat of the Detroit Red Wings’ camera-hole goal, which baffled Washington Capitals staff, should’ve been called off or not?