New York Islanders defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky -- currently plying his trade with KHL side Slovan Bratislava -- has been fined 300,000 rubles for “a slur on the honor and integrity of the League and its referees.”
The fine (roughly $9,800) was levied following Saturday’s game between Slovan and Ak Bars, in which a late third period goal underwent a lengthy video review process because the Slovan goal camera wasn’t working properly.
That forced Slovan’s goal judge to contact the video monitoring room in the KHL office -- which took a long time, and apparently drew Visnovsky’s ire:
The incident has landed [Visnovsky] in trouble with the League, after he criticized the referees after the game.
The League notes that no official complaint about the standard of refereeing has been submitted by Slovan, and the commission which monitors the performance of the officials considered their performance satisfactory.
Furthermore, the lengthy delay in awarding Slovan’s equalizing goal was entirely due to a technical fault in Slovan’s video equipment.
According to the KHL Regulations, the officials are under no obligation to explain their decisions to any player other than team captains and alternate captains.
The weird part is that Slovan -- y’know, Visnovsky’s team -- benefited from the drawn-out review. The goal was awarded, the game was tied, and Slovan went on to win in a shootout.
Maybe Lubo was still hot and bothered about the tripping penalty he took in the first period.
Anyway, this isn’t the first time the KHL’s review process has come under scrutiny. In late October, a video goal judge was relieved of his duties after blowing a call between Amur and Salavat Yulaev.
