What a game. The goalie duel between Crawford and Howard was fantastic to watch. Playoff-like hockey in the regular season is just a joy.
But I've gotta get back to this goal that Detroit scored, because I saw a lot of discussion over it. And I'm in the camp that pins the goal on Carcillo.
HawkWriter, you're absolutely right about defensive zone assignments ... in most situations. But in transition hockey, which happens here, the 1st forward into the zone (usually also the 3rd defender) has to pick up the third forward back into the zone. In this case, the players were Carcillo and Tatar, respectively.
At the start of this clip, you'll see Frolik way up the ice on a forecheck.
Check the video at the 0:09 mark. You'll see Tatar just entering the zone and Carcillo watching Leddy battle for the puck with a Wing player. Roszival is in the middle, but he's going to be responsible for #63 on Detroit (don't care to look it up) as the play develops.
[video=youtube;V4VreUbG748]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4VreUbG748[/video]
You'll see, at the 0:13 mark, as Tatar takes his shot, that he's a step ahead of both Carcillo and Frolik. But, like I said at the beginning, Frolik was way up ice on a forecheck and Carcillo was the 3rd man into the zone. Therefore, that's Carcillo's man that puts the puck in the net.
On his path back into the zone, Carcillo coasts over to the boards in order to be an outlet for Leddy, assuming that Leddy was going to retrieve the puck from behind the net. Just a step late in realizing that danger Leddy was in, and that step cost the Hawks a goal.
Some blame goes to Carcillo. Some blame also has to go to Leddy for losing a puck battle behind his own net.
