Mar 24, 2025; Elmont, New York, USA; New York Islanders center Kyle Palmieri (21) skates with the puck against Columbus Blue Jackets right wing Kirill Marchenko (86) during overtime at UBS Arena. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images
ELMONT, NY — Kyle Palmieri scored the New York Islanders’ biggest goal yet of the 2024-25 season.
With 8.9 seconds left in regulation of Monday night’s game at UBS Arena, the veteran winger tipped defenseman Alex Romanov’s shot past Columbus Blue Jackets goalie Elvis Merzlikens to break a 3-3 tie, give the Islanders a regulation win, and put them in a tie for the second and final Wild Card playoff berth in the Eastern Conference.
But before Palmieri could lift his stick to celebrate, the goal was immediately waved off by referee Michael Markovic, sending the would-be hero into a tirade — one that only worsened after the NHL offices in Toronto checked the play in which it was Merzlikens who left the crease to make contact with the forward roughly a second-and-a-half before tipping the puck in and confirmed the no-goal.
“[The referee] said there was contact initiated in the crease and I guess the goalie needs five minutes to get reset and ready for the shot,” Palmieri said after the game. “It looked like he couldn’t wait to wave it off.
“I thought it was a goal. I thought it was the wrong call. I thought they got it wrong right off the bat and I thought they got it wrong after the review.”
Instead, the Islanders could only settle for a point as they lost in a shootout and now sit one point behind them in the Wild Card race. The controversial call keeps them out of the playoff spot that they have been scratching and clawing their way toward methodically over the past two weeks by just a single point with 12 games left to play.
While the result extends their point streak to seven straight games, it provided little consolation for a seething locker room and head coach — the latter lambasting the NHL for its officiating processes.
“If Toronto is afraid to overturn calls made by their referees, we don’t need Toronto,” Patrick Roy said. “That’s all I’m going to say.”
Star center Bo Horvat labeled the decision as “one of the worst no-goal calls I have ever seen.”
The Islanders have often been on the wrong call of goalie-interference calls, including a March 12, 4-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings where two second-period goals were waved off due to goalie interference challenges.
“It’s so frustrating, especially this time of year,” Horvat said. “You’re pushing for points… They say they want more goals in the league, they say there needs to be more scoring.”
It has left the Islanders searching for answers that simply are not coming, as a late-season playoff push is now being plagued by developing reservations hanging over players trying to make their way to the net.
“I don’t understand what’s a goal and what’s not anymore,” Horvat said. “That’s the frustrating part. There’s no black or white in my eyes. Obviously, they saw it different. He kind of clipped the back of Palms’ leg and Palms kinda stumbled. But he still had plenty of time to make that save. Palms made a great tip. To me, that’s a goal all day long on the ice and I don’t know what’s good and what’s not anymore. To me, that was one of the worst ones I’ve seen…
“We don’t know what to do anymore. You try to stay out of the crease the best you can. It’s a guessing game all the time. We’ve been called back so many times in the last week or two and it’s really getting frustrating when we’re pushing for a playoff spot. That’s obviously a game-winning goal late in a hockey game, and to me, that’s just unacceptable.”
Adding further to Islanders frustrations was that Markovic and his officiating crew never approached Roy after the decision to explain what went into it, leaving the head coach stupified about how to approach net-front play with his team.
“You should call the league and tell our players because I don’t know what to say anymore,” Roy said. “I mean, if you’re outside the crease, I always thought that was the place to be.”
