Dude, defensemen do this all the time. They initiate contact before getting to a free puck so they don't leave themselves vulnerable to the pursuing forward. It happens in every game.
Unfortunately gilbert went for that move here and the timing of his move along with Carcillo really bringing a hit himself ended up being real ugly.
Gilbert started the contact with the intent to hit carcillo before carcillo could hit him.
Ok, well I can see that -- and I also see that you were responding to the equivalent of someone arguing about 'travelling' in the NBA, or that despite the ball beating a basestealer to the base and no clear tag was made -the baserunner was still given out (I knew a minor league ump -A ball ump -and that's exactly what he said -ball beat you- you're out (not to me- in general... I used to play in drop in games of hockey when he was going to that ump school in Fla in the 90's.).
The puck was basically there -so it was probably more of the spectacular nature of the play and getting slammed into the boards from behind, was the reason for the call.
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I'm going to take this as a lesson, as I really respected Pat Foley's take on calls (but then again that was back in the 80's) - and I think that I will analyse these without considering presenters' commentary.