Ducks HC Quenneville Blasts Icing Call on Knights' Game-Winning Goal After Trending NHL Video

Anaheim Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville expressed his displeasure Monday night over a controversial non-call on an icing, which led directly to the Vegas Golden Knights' game-winning goal in the third period of Game 1 of their second-round NHL playoff series.

Vegas took a 2-1 lead with just under five minutes remaining on an Ivan Barbashev goal off a pass from Pavel Dorofeyev, and it came immediately after an official waved off icing despite Ducks defenseman Jackson Lacombe beating Golden Knights forward Jack Eichel to the end line:

After the icing was waved off and the goal was scored, an animated Quenneville made his disapproval clear by yelling from the bench area:

Following Anaheim's 3-1 loss, Quenneville told reporters, "Clearly, I disagreed with the call. Clearly, it was icing. But their guy stopped skating, which really made me annoyed."

To make matters worse for the Ducks, they had seized momentum just over one minute before the Barbashev goal, as Mikael Granlund scored to tie the game at 1-1.

That didn't sit well with Quenneville, who added, "We just scored. It was a huge call and it was an easy call."

For most of the NHL's history, icing was determined by which team touched the puck first after it crossed the end line, but in the interest of player safety, the league switched to hybrid icing in 2013.

While hybrid icing is undoubtedly safer, it is nowhere near as cut and dry as touch icing since the official has to make a judgment call of who they believe would touch the puck first based on body positioning.

Regarding the icing that wasn't called on Monday, Lacombe seemed to have ideal positioning on Eichel, which is what made the non-call so surprising.

While Monday's loss was a tough one, it should be noted that Quenneville and the Ducks also lost Game 1 of their first-round series against the Edmonton Oilers before storming back to win four of the next five games.

It represented a huge step for a young Ducks team since the Oilers had reached the Stanley Cup Final in each of the previous two seasons.

Now, Anaheim has to overcome a similarly experienced Golden Knights team that has made four consecutive playoff appearances and won the Stanley Cup in 2023.

The Ducks will look to even the series on Wednesday night when the Golden Knights host them for Game 2.