Any small advantage, gained or lost, can deeply affect a series as close as the first-round playoff matchup between the Rangers and the Flyers, which continues Tuesday with Game 3 in Philadelphia.
And the Flyers have kept giving the Rangers a man advantage. The Rangers had six power plays in a 4-1 victory in Game 1, and another six in the Flyers’ 4-2 victory in Game 2.
The
Rangers would have had eight power plays in Game 2, had the referees
not called offsetting diving penalties on Mats Zuccarello and Derek
Dorsett. After practice Monday, Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault found a
way to object that would not draw a fine.
“Let
me ask you, did you see the replays?” he said when asked whether the
officials had explained the calls to him. “I’ll let you make the
judgment on if Zuccarello’s was an embellishment. It doesn’t matter what
I think.”
The first call came at 8 minutes 40 seconds of the second period, with the score tied at 2-2.
Flyers defenseman Andrew MacDonald tripped Zuccarello
in front of the Philadelphia net, away from the play. Zuccarello’s legs
became tangled, and as he fell, his left arm came up in a way that
could have been an exaggeration — or, just as plausibly, an effort to
keep his balance. The referees called MacDonald for interference and
Zuccarello for diving.
The
second came about three minutes later, just after the Flyers had taken a
3-2 lead. A split second after a whistle in the Philadelphia zone, the
Flyers’ Wayne Simmonds crosschecked Dorsett in the back, sending him
headfirst into the end boards. Both players were sent to the penalty
box.
Had
one of those diving penalties not been called, the Rangers would have
had another power play at a critical juncture. The Rangers are 3 for 12
on power plays in the series.
“I
didn’t think I was diving, but the refs make mistakes like we make
mistakes,” Zuccarello said. “I thought it was a bad call. I think
everyone who watches me knows I don’t dive. That’s what I thought when I
got the call — I would never dive. But it’s forgotten now.”
Dorsett also disagreed with the call against him.
“I
can’t see him coming, and I’m in a vulnerable position — I don’t think I
embellished,” he said. “If I’m going to dive, am I going to dive
face-first into the boards?”
The
N.H.L. first instructed referees to penalize diving players before the
1992-93 season; the penalty came under the umbrella of unsportsmanlike
conduct. Starting in 1998-99, referees were instructed to enforce the
rule more closely, with the penalty listed as “diving.”
The
Rangers’ staff uncovered one other game since the start of the 1998-99
season in which a team was called for diving more than once: Game 6 of
the first-round series between the Montreal Canadiens and the Washington
Capitals on April 26, 2010, when the Canadiens’ Maxim Lapierre was
penalized twice and his teammate Brian Gionta was called once.
Zuccarello said the Rangers coaches had not emphasized a need to avoid embellishment penalties in Game 3.
“We’re not a diving team, so it’s nothing to talk about,” he said.
SLAP SHOTS
The
Flyers announced Monday that goalie Steve Mason would remain out of the
lineup for Game 3, and that Ray EmerY, who stopped 31 of 33 shots in
Game 2, would get his third straight start. Mason, the Flyers’ No. 1
goalie, has been sidelined with a suspected concussion since a collision
forced him to leave Philadelphia’s next-to-last regular-season game.
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