Dubnyk unleashes rant about goalie contact, video review

Minnesota Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk earned his 32nd win of the season Saturday night when his club took down the Nashville Predators with a dominant 5-2 effort. But it wasn't a peachy a night as it might sound.

The star netminder was up in arms afterward, upset about a late-game incident that saw winger James Neal clip Dubnyk in the head with an elbow.

The play in question came in the last 10 minutes of the teams' tilt, and right at the moment that Predators rearguard P.K. Subban fired in Nashville's second goal of the game.

Subban's goal was called off initially, but then reinstated upon a challenge from head coach Peter Laviolette, as it was determined that Neal made contact after the puck was already in the net.

According to Dubnyk, it isn't so simple.

"I don't even know what the rule is anymore. ... If you want to find a clip of a goalie just getting scored on a straight shot from there it's going to be tough to find," Dubnyk said to The Star Tribune's Michael Russo after the game. "When I know I'm about to get my head taken off, I don't know how that doesn't qualify as able to make a save. ...

"It doesn't matter if the player is in the white if I'm in my paint. Like, I'm where I need to be. And regardless of that, if that play happens to a player in the middle of the ice, that's going to be a suspension. Like, he almost killed me."

Dubnyk took issue with the fact that the officials failed to serve Neal with a penalty for the questionable hit, regardless of the goal.

"You can't tell me that's (OK). That's a dangerous play," Dubnyk said. "So even after they go and decide that I just let that shot straight in, they all forget that that's a penalty regardless of whether the puck went in first or not."

Video review didn't escape the Wild netminder's wrath either.

"I bet if there's no such thing as a review, it's no goal and a penalty," Dubnyk said. "Instead now there's all these distractions, they're trying to figure out if the other team is challenging, then they go over and they're looking at it and they're thinking about all these things and it gets forgot about."

It's difficult to blame Dubnyk for being upset with the lack of discipline, especially given the number of incidents this season in which goalies have taken questionable contact.

Luckily for Dubnyk and the Wild, he emerged unscathed and his club earned the win, regardless of Subban's third-period tally. Minnesota is in the midst of its finest season in years, and has few legitimate options in the cage if Dubnyk is forced out with injury.