Kitchener Rangers robbed of goal in Game 2 loss to London Knights?

You cannot spell 'Anthony Stolarz shuts out Kitchener' without a-s-t-e-r-i-s-k.

With the Rangers and London Knights knotted at naughts in the second period on Sunday in Game 2 of their OHL Western Conference semifinal, Stolarz appeared to made a tremendous glove save on Kitchener's leading goal scorer, Ottawa Senators prospect Matt Puempel. Photographic evidence (captured from Twitter, Rangers beat writer Josh Brown has a higher-resolution image of a photo by Waterloo Record photographer Mat McCarthy on his blog) shows that the puck was over the line when Stolarz caught it. Evidently, television replays were not conclusive, but the still photo is pretty definitive.

The play was not video-reviewed and the Rangers did not ask for one, not that it's incumbent on the teams to make sure the officials ensure that calls are correct. The reason it's controversal is the Knights went on to win 2-0 and take a two-game series lead. Super sophomores Max Domi and Bo Horvat, on a breakaway two seconds after the Knights finished killing off a late penalty, scored the only goals for a 2-0 Knights win.

[Stolarz stops 34 shots as Knights take 2-0 series lead]

There is no knowing how the game would have proceeded if the goal had been counted.

The real question is that if the puck was in but there irrefutable evidence of it on the TV replay, as the London Free Press' Morris Dalla Costa points out, then what is the next step to increase the chance that a team will not be denied a good goal in an important game? The underdog Rangers have a tremendous veteran goalie, John Gibson, and might have been able to batten down defensively and nurse that one-goal margin through the end of 60 minutes. Or at least they would have stood a better chance of getting into an anyone's-game overtime.

By the same side of the coin, this is not a small-violin sympathy for coach-GM Steve Spott's Rangers. They still didn't manage to score against the Knights and Stolarz, the Philadelphia Flyers second-round draft pick, in the other 59 minutes and change of hockey action. That was despite a 7-3 edge in power plays, too.

(Stick tap: Andrew Evans, @EvansXFM).

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet. Please address any questions, comments or concerns to btnblog@yahoo.ca.