Peter Regin was frustrated.
He thought he had scored, but the NHL’s war room in Toronto disagreed on Sunday.
Nobody associated with the Senators was happy after it was ruled Regin kicked in a puck that beat Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury through the five-hole with 40.8 seconds left in the first period.
Regin felt it was going to count, because he thought he got his stick on it.
“I thought for sure it was a goal. I thought I hit it with my stick. I thought the puck was between his legs and I tried to hit it,” the 24-year-old Danish rookie said.
“I wasn’t really surprised (when it didn’t count) because when somebody has a kicking motion they always (call it back). When I saw it on the scoreboard, it looked worse than it was.”
‘Huge’
The goal could have changed the complexion of the game. It would have tied the score 1-1 going into the second period, but coach Cory Clouston wasn’t arguing in his post-game press conference.
“Peter is playing very well,” said Clouston. “That’s probably the right call. I haven’t looked at it in-depth. I’ve got to assume it’s the right call. That’s why we made it.
“It would have been huge. We didn’t have a lot of breaks go our way. We had the disallowed goal and a couple of open nets.”
Meantime, Regin was easily the club’s best player, but all he had to show for his effort was an assist.
That came on a tremendous pass to Mike Fisher on the power play at 1:53 of the second, which did the score 1-1, albeit briefly.
Of course, that wasn’t the goal everybody wanted to talk to Regin about afterward.
Instead, it was about the one that didn’t count.
— Bruce Garrioch
