I hear you on the whistle, but IMO that is why you have replay and if the ref made an error you correct it. Today on the Midday 180 one of the guys said, the rule is the same in football, but how many times does a player finish a play after the whistle and the refs look at it and say ok we were wrong and overturn the call on the field, because the whistle had no bearing on the play. That is the issue here, in a game this big you can't just mess up and say, "well that is the rule". The whistle had no bearing on the outcome of the play. I doubt anyone on the ice even heard it.

I believe the Pens would have won a game 7 in Pittsburgh, but make the right call and if it ends up that way so be it, but don't leave a fan base feeling like they got cheated. I do agree the refs tried to help the Preds too, but they didn't take a goal from the Pens. If they wanted to they could have called goal tender interference on the challenge, even if it was BS.

Lastly Nashville is not a traditional hockey market, but it has hockey fans, and a team and with this run NEW fans (band wagoners or not) were there. The NHL obviously wants to grow their brand and the best way to do it is branch into nontraditional markets, but when you have a bunch of NEW fans that don't really understand the game and you make them feel cheated, you may have turned them off forever. Now if the Preds make another run next year, maybe they come back, but that is a big if.