Players in the Tampa Bay Lightning-Minnesota Wild game Friday night were briefly seeing double. There, early in the second period, the Wild’s Marco Rossi crashed the net and shot wide. But he then found another puck behind the net and tucked it into the Lightning net while a Tampa Bay defender corralled the original puck and advanced it. Play went on for about 20 seconds before the officials noticed the second puck and blew the play dead:
“Oh, it’s right behind the net! There was just the extra puck behind the net!” @FanDuelSN_NOR play-by-play voice Anthony LaPanta and analyst Ryan Carter wound up calling a rare multi-puck situation in the Lightning-Wild NHL game last night. pic.twitter.com/4O0E3VvX12
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 2, 2024
It’s bizarre to see an extra puck just come into play like that. But, after the commercial break, the FanDuel Sports North Wild broadcast identified that this had come from a shot on the previous play from Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov from in front of the net. That shot missed, hit the netting above the glass, and bounced back to behind the net. But the puck being back on the ice wasn’t identified by anyone until Rossi saw it on the next play and put it in the Lightning net.
This was ruled to be no goal. But with some “heavy-duty research” from the “forensics department,” the announcers figured out how that extra puck got there. pic.twitter.com/APmWSipC1h
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 2, 2024
On review, this unsurprisingly did not count as a goal. But it did lead to quite the commentary from play-by-play voice Anthony LaPanta and analyst Ryan Carter, with Carter saying near the end of that second clip “I’ve seen two pucks on the ice before, Anthony, it’s happened before, but I’ve never seen one slammed home on a wrap-around” and LaPanta saying “I’ve never seen one sit there this long.” And Kaprizov was surprised about it afterwards as well:
Kaprizov on Rossi’s hidden puck trick: “I don’t know where this puck was. From where I don’t know.”
Answer: From you @FanDuelSN_NOR found that the puck was from Kaprizov firing into netting on previous PP. Nobody realized puck fell to the ice and was disguised behind net. 😂 https://t.co/YJsbqBUl8c
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) November 2, 2024
That’s quite an unusual moment, and a funny thing to see. But while this dual-puck goal didn’t count, the Wild went on to a 5-3 win, so it worked out okay for them in the end.
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