TNT missed a Game 7 Panthers’ goal for a replay

Game broadcasts often show elements apart from immediately-live action, whether with replays or interviews. But that can be risky, as TNT found out during their broadcast of Game 7 of the Florida Panthers’ NHL playoff series against the Toronto Maple Leafs Sunday night.

While analyzing a previous replay of Panthers’ forward Evan Rodrigues putting his stick into the shoulder of Leafs’ forward Max Pacioretty, TNT analyst Eddie Olczyk noted matter-of-factly, “And [Sam] Reinhart just scores.”

“And Reinhart just scores. Reinhart just put the puck into the back of the net off the faceoff.” Play-by-play voice Kenny Albert then added, “That makes it 5-1 Florida with 10:36 remaining.” Even the TNT scorebug took a moment to update from 4-1 to 5-1. And then the broadcast finally got to showing a replay of the goal, and to letting Albert call it with, “Right off the draw, Reinhart beats [Joseph] Woll.”

By contrast, the Canadian national English-language broadcast on Sportsnet caught this properly on camera (albeit with analyst Craig Simpson finishing a point as the goal happened, leaving play-by-play voice Chris Cuthbert to just get off a “Scores!” slightly late):

Thus, unlike with the Max Domi-Aleksander Barkov hit earlier in this series (which led to a max-level fine), Sportsnet wound up with the better coverage in this case. But fortunately, this goal that TNT missed wound up not being huge in the grand scheme of the game. Florida would go on to win 6-1 and advance to the Eastern Conference Finals against the Carolina Hurricanes. (That was their second 6-1 win this series, with Game 5 also decided by that lopsided margin.)

Letting a replay run into live action is always dangerous, though. That’s especially true around a situation like an offensive-zone faceoff. And Reinhart and the Panthers sure proved why here.

While explanatory replays to illustrate analysts’ points can be nice, having them run into resuming action carries a risk of missing something important. And while this particular goal wasn’t decisive, this is still a good reminder of what can go wrong when broadcasts go away from live action. And it adds to a list of problems for TNT Sports these playoffs, from technical difficulties through much-criticized decisions on remote announcers.