Obscure NHL rule gives Wild strange victory over Predators

Wild coach John Hynes knew the rule, the one that explains how a goal can be scored when the net isn’t in place, but Hynes needed to see the sequence again to know if it applied.

“When I went back and watched it,” he said, “then I understand the call, for sure.”

Marcus Johansson didn’t know the rule, but that didn’t stop the forward from hurling the puck over the goal line despite the net facing the corner with only the right post fastened into the ice.

“I didn’t know really what happened,” Johansson said. “Didn’t know if we were supposed to celebrate or not.”

Johansson did eventually raise his hands in triumph after first lifting them in appeal, the net knocked loose by Nashville goaltender Justus Annunen.

Since Annunen was the instigator and Johansson had a scoring chance, Johansson’s backhand over the goal line gave the Wild a 3-2 overtime win Tuesday night at Grand Casino Arena after they coughed up the tying goal with two-tenths of a second left in the third period.

“A little bit crazy,” Hynes said, “but we’ll take it.”

Instead, this head-scratcher was the latest example of how slim the margin of error is for the team while the search for consistency continues.

“Obviously, we didn’t play the way we wanted to,” rookie defenseman Zeev Buium said. “But at the same time, you gotta find a way to win every game. So, we found a way.”

Creatively, to be sure.

As if giving up the equalizer with less than a second to go in regulation wasn’t dramatic enough, the Wild needed an obscure rule to salvage their performance — an outcome the Predators disputed since Johansson’s initial shot hit the side of the net after it was already adrift.

“We thought the puck came back to him on the second attempt because the net was off,” said Nashville forward Steven Stamkos, who scored that late goal to send both teams to overtime. “If not, the puck goes behind the net, and we live to fight another day. So that’s where we didn’t agree with the call.”

After scoring first in the first period, they faltered in the second, getting outshot 14-4 while the Predators started their rally, converting on a Wild turnover during a 2-on-0 chance against goaltender Filip Gustavsson.

“It was our own doing,” Buium said of the second-period collapse. “We weren’t playing to the competitive level we want to play at, disconnected, maybe trying to be a little cute, myself included. There’s plays where we could have just moved it up north, but we were trying to hold on to it for a second and find a better play. So, just in that sense kind of got away from it.”

Straying from their style been the Wild’s biggest problem during their 5-6-3 start.

They play it in pockets, the quick clears, effective passes and tenacious forechecking, but not frequently enough to make themselves a formidable opponent for an entire game. And when these lapses happen, the opposition has pounced.

During Nashville’s second-period takeover, the likes of Brock Faber and Jonas Brodin were stuck on the ice for 2-minute shifts and Ryan Hartman had a 3-minute stint.

A close call like that holds up regardless of the outcome, but processing it after a win isn’t the same as after a loss.