Islanders: Brassard’s late penalty leads to cross-checking dilemma

With time counting down against the New York Rangers, New York Islanders forward Derick Brassard committed a cross-checking penalty that has fans talking.

After a brutal 6-2 loss to the New York Rangers back on Monday night, the New York Islanders had a chance at redemption as they hosted the Blue Shirts at The Coliseum. As the clock ticked down in the third in the 2-2 game, it seemed that this game was heading to overtime, a crucial point the Islanders would have loved to earn.

But with 54 seconds left in this one, forward Derick Brassard took a cross-checking penalty, resulting in a power-play goal with 24.6 seconds remaining. Rangers forward Chris Kreider was able to pick up a rebound and score to seal the victory for the visiting team.

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Islander fans went nuts on Twitter, and it is hard to blame them. It was frustrating watching this, but after fuming for a hot second and looking back, it was in fact, a cross-check, despite a little embellishment by Jesper Fast. And the fact that Brassard did it three times in a row, the last one being the most pivotal.

You can’t really argue the call. It was the pure definition of a cross-check, and Brassard believed that Fast went down way too easily.

“It’s just not a good feeling, we just lost a game and it was a really good hockey game. And you call that with a minute left, the ref in the corner had nothing but the guy in the neutral zone decided to call that. It is what it is.”

And you have to feel sorry for him because the Rangers made it count.

The infraction of a cross-check is not a penalty that is called very often in the National Hockey League today. You see it every once in a while, usually taking place in front of the net as a defenseman looks to push his opponent out of the front.

The league has to make a decision here. Either cross-checking is not going to be called, or it needs to be called more often. This infraction is committed all the time and the referees usually let it go, unless it’s egregious, as we saw earlier in the game.

With this call being made, Brassard has to be smarter. After the scary play earlier in the game, the officials were looking for it. And Brassard needs to realize that.

It was an unfortunate way for this rivalry matchup to end, but nevertheless the correct call was made and the Islanders lose a tough one.

Everyone on Twitter is blaming Brassard, but he does not deserve all the blame. The Islanders still have a duty to kill the penalty off. And they did not do so.

Going 0-5 on the power play does not help either, especially when you commit five penalties of your own, with the Rangers capitalizing twice.

Islanders defenseman Johhny Boychuk needed to pick up Chris Kreider in front, as he failed to do so which resulted in the goal.

If cross-checking is called more frequently, players will learn and it will clearly decrease, as we see with other penalties such as boarding. But the lack of this specific call becomes detrimental, as one night a player can get away with it numerous times and another it comes back to hurt his team.