Clockgate, Day 3

There’s apparently nothing new from the NHL today regarding the clock controversy from Wednesday night’s Kings-Blue Jackets game. The story is significant enough that commission Gary Bettman talked about it during his weekly radio show. Here are a few more notes on the story.

— The league has sent two representatives to Los Angeles to talk to Staples Center arena personnel about the clock and about what might have happened. It’s not known when they might have a definitive answer.

— Based on the TV coverage clip, I timed the last 15 seconds of the game myself, and the time was 16.2 seconds, which would indicate a clock pause of 1.2 seconds. If you’re a believer in Dean Lombardi’s re-calibration theory, you’d want to go back and time the entire final minute, to see if it is accurate. I don’t have that full clip accessible here.

— Contrary to what has been written a couple places, I’ve still seen no evidence that the goal was initially waved off on the ice. If you watch the video, one ref has his hands out in an “all-clear’’ indication for the final three or four seconds. The other ref clearly points to the net, indicating a good goal.

— I’m told, by a couple different people, that when the clock is stopped, inside the booth next to the ice, that there is an audible beep, and that in this instance, nobody heard a beep. That would indicate that if there was a pause with the clock, it was a malfunction. It’s unfortunate that the league has allowed this “human error’’ possibility to remain part of the realm of possibility, when there’s no evidence of it. In fact, it would have been nice if everyone associated with the league had talked less. It would have been far more productive for the league to simply say, “We’re taking this seriously, and we will publicly present all the facts once our investigation is complete.’’ Nothing more.