Warren Foegele of the Edmonton Oilers may not have needed a penalty at all, according to a new camera perspective.
This sums up the Edmonton Oilers’ postseason experience. It’s hardly ideal to be down 2-0 against the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final. To put it mildly, the numbers do not look good for the Oilers.
Referees work in an extremely challenging environment. Every night, they must call the game by the book. All things are, of course, magnified during the postseason, including referee scrutiny.
Following the aforementioned collision, there was a great deal of conjecture and discussion on the internet. Even the head coach of the Oilers, Kris Knoblauch, addressed the matter in his post-match remarks, saying, “It’s difficult to adjust where your feet are when you strike someone and they get out of the way. Between the two plays (the penalty for Warren Foegele and the penalty for Sam Bennett), I don’t see many differences.
You can hear the announcers stating that the collision was knee-on-knee when you watch the playback. It’s difficult to refute that because it happened so quickly. There may be more to the play than what the limited camera angles on the replay revealed, though, based on Foegele’s response in the penalty box.
More doubts about this play are being raised by a video that is becoming viral on social media. A fan in the stands took the video. You can see the thigh-on-thigh contact in this video. Following that, you witness Eetu Luostarinen violently swing his leg to avoid making contact. Then, just before Foegele takes off into the air, you witness Luostarinen’s stick grab him in the skates.
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It’s quite feasible that Foegele’s penalty is lessened if the referees had access to a camera perspective like this one to review. It’s possible that Luostarinen would have received a tripping penalty in its place.
The speed at which Luostarinen moved his leg betrays a certain amount of discomfort, no doubt. However, after seeing this new film, it seems excessive for the penalty to be deemed a “knee-on-knee” and to get the harsh punishment that ensued.
