My thoughts. Xpost from /r/hockey
Alright. I said last night I would leave this one alone. But, I have the week off from work, and nothing to do today until the Habs get stomped by play the Panthers tonight. Yes, I am a Habs fan. I hope I don't come off as homer-ish, but I wanted to add my perspective, even if I am late to the "discussion" and may not be seen by most, as it seems Prust has already been deemed literally Satan and a scrub. For the record this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3DC6GyqqzA is the video I am using. From the time the puck enters the zone until the contact occurs between Prust and Bishop, 5 seconds on the game clock has past. (13:28 when it enters, 13:23 at time of contact). There may be decimals of seconds involved here, but, those do not show up on the NHL game clocks until a minute is left. At 13:25 of game clock, Bishop begins to leave his net, while Prust is looking to the right at the puck coming around the corner. http://i.imgur.com/MJDzjJZ.png This leaves 2 seconds of time from Bishop leaving the net to the contact. Since the play is advancing deep into the Lightning zone at a fast pace, I don't think Prust thought Bishop would be leaving the net to play the puck like that. He is chasing the puck like any forechecker would, keeping his eye on it and trying to figure out how to retrieve it. At 13:24 of game clock, the puck is just to the right of the official (crudely outlined in red). Now, when going after a moving object, you move to where your paths will meet on relative to their trajectory, not where it currently is. http://i.imgur.com/zcqNMoO.png This leaves 1 second, as per the game clock, until contact between Prust and Bishop. Less than a second later is when I believe Prust notices that Bishop is in his path to the puck. http://i.imgur.com/KdmqDAu.png Prust has Mark Barberio (#8 in blue) on his left side and Bishop in front of him. With his momentum in that direction, if Prust had of turned his skates to the left he would have contacted Barberio (in hindsight, probably the best option). If he had of turned right, his momentum would have caused him to catch an edge and go head first into the boards/Bishop. He opted for going straight, let up and tried to minimize any damage. Another less than a second later: http://i.imgur.com/maO7axF.png Prust now realizes contact with Bishop is imminent, spreads out his body and braces for contact. At this point, there is nothing he can do to avoid it, but he did try to lessen the impact. I am of the belief that Prust did not intend to hit or hurt Bishop in this case. And that this is an unfortunate situation for all involved. While Prusts past isn't squeaky clean, I do not think it is fair to call him the scum of the earth for this. Hockey is a fast game, and making these decisions in milliseconds is tough. The response from the Tampa players, I think is warranted. They didn't have the benefit of viewing it like we do. They can't hit pause, zoom, rewind like we can after the fact. I would also agree with the referees call that this is only a 2 minute penalty. Without context of Prust and the past of these two teams, I would have also called a Tampa player for roughing and given Prust an extra two for roughing. Still giving the man advantage to Tampa. However, I think the 2 minutes is sufficient enough.
