{"id":439818,"date":"2026-02-01T12:56:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T12:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/439818\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T12:56:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T12:56:30","slug":"devils-perplexed-by-connor-browns-disallowed-goal-in-third-period-of-loss-to-senators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/439818\/","title":{"rendered":"Devils Perplexed By Connor Brown’s Disallowed Goal In Third Period Of Loss To Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Jersey Devils thought they had tied their game Saturday night in Ottawa on a power-play goal by Connor Brown<\/a> late in the third period. <\/p>\n

Yet, the NHL Situation Room in Toronto felt differently.<\/p>\n

The league\u2019s powers that be ruled Brown\u2019s would-be game-tying goal a hand pass and took it off the board, much to the dismay of Devils fans and especially coach Sheldon Keefe.<\/p>\n

The Devils allowed three third-period goals to the Ottawa Senators<\/a> and lost 4-1, their third loss in their past four games. <\/p>\n

Sheldon Keefe Felt Connor Brown\u2019s Disallowed Goal Should Have Counted<\/p>\n

Trailing 2-1 with less than four minutes in regulation, Brown received a fortuitous bounce at the side of the net when Dougie Hamilton<\/a>\u2018s blast from the point was deflected. Brown gloved the puck and dropped it forward and into the net, off Ottawa goalie Linus Ullmar<\/a>k\u2019s stick, for a goal that appeared to knot the score at 2.<\/p>\n

The situation room called down to officials Justin Kea and Frederick L\u2019Ecuyer to review the play and took the goal off the board. The announcement from Kea was it was called off due to a hand pass, though Brown did not direct the puck to any of his teammates. <\/p>\n

Here is what the rule that was enforced: <\/p>\n

Rule 79.1\u2013 A player shall be permitted to stop or \u201cbat\u201d a puck in the air with his open hand, or push it along the ice with his hand, and the play shall not be stopped unless, in the opinion of the on-ice officials, he has directed the puck to a teammate, or has allowed his team to gain an advantage, and subsequently possession and control of the puck is obtained by a player of the offending team, either directly or deflected off any player or official.<\/p>\n

The second part of the above-referenced rule is what\u2019s important, since there were no teammates in Brown\u2019s vicinity. The situation room deemed Brown and the Devils \u201cgained an advantage\u201d by playing the puck forward, and the fact it \u201cdeflected off\u201d Ullmark did not matter. <\/p>\n

But after the game, Keefe felt the Devils were cheated. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs I see it, Connor\u2019s making a play on it to put the puck down, and he\u2019s about to put the puck in the wide-open net, and then their goaltender puts it in for him,\u201d Keefe said. \u201cIf the goalie doesn\u2019t make a play on the puck and shoot it in himself, then Connor puts it in a wide-open net.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a tough one. I guess that is the rule \u2014 the goalie is playing his position \u2014 but obviously we\u2019re not going to love the interpretation of that rule, because it\u2019s an empty-net goal for Brownie if the goalie doesn\u2019t do what he did. That\u2019s a tough bounce to not go our way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesper Bratt Was Frustrated By Connor Brown\u2019s Disallowed Goal<\/p>\n

The Devils went 0 for 5 with the man advantage Saturday night, but don\u2019t tell Jesper Bratt<\/a> that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that in the third period, we had some really good looks and some key chances on the power play,\u201d the Devils\u2019 star forward said. \u201cOne of them technically went in, but it technically wasn\u2019t a goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he remained his usual demur self, Bratt was clearly worked up over Brown\u2019s disallowed goal, especially since shortly after the power play ended Tim Stutzle<\/a> made it 3-1 with his 25th that effectively sealed the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, the rules are what they are, and they looked at it,\u201d Bratt said. \u201cI guess it wasn\u2019t a goal, but that obviously would have changed the game a lot to have [the score be] 2-2 instead of a couple minutes later [the Senators] going up 3-1.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"avatar\"<\/p>\n

\t\tPat Pickens is an award-winning sports writer and author who has covered the NHL since 2013. He has covered … More about Pat Pickens<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Jersey Devils thought they had tied their game Saturday night in Ottawa on a power-play goal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[201,3723,5,151,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-439818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-devils","9":"tag-devils-news","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-new-jersey-devils","12":"tag-ottawa-senators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115995488839052925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}