Photographer’s Camera Cutout Scored a Crucial Goal in the NHL

The NHL’s Detroit Red Wings got a fortunate bounce last night on a late game-tying goal to send its game against the Washington Capitals into overtime, and the photographer’s cutout in the plexiglass should get credit for the goal.

With just 53 seconds remaining in the third and final period, Red Wings forward Alex DeBrincat attempted to dump the puck into the offensive zone. As is often the case with dump-and-chase plays, DeBrincat opted to fire the puck along the glass, hoping to get the puck behind Washington’s net and apply immediate forecheck pressure. However, the puck did not make it behind the net; instead, it hit the photographer’s camera opening.

This camera opening is an occasional culprit for strange, unusual bounces in hockey games, though it is not clear it has ever directly resulted in a goal like this. The cutout is an essential area for professional photographers to work. Shooting through plexiglass, which is often scarred by puck marks, is challenging and results in bad shots. So, to help photographers, NHL arenas have small cutouts, just large enough for a photographer to point their lens at the action without shooting through the glass. These cutouts have plexiglass covers, and at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, it is a door mechanism.

The puck hits the camera and ricochets into the net and the Wings have tied it with 2 consecutive 6 on 5 goals
byu/dudewithchronicpain inhockey

As DeBrincat’s wrist shot whizzed along the glass, Detroit News photographer Dave Guralnick went to close the door, as he is supposed to. Instead of just gliding along the glass, though, the puck took a bizarre ricochet and headed straight to Washington’s net. The flukey bounce caught Capitals’ goaltender Charlie Lindgren off guard, and the puck went in, tying the game at three goals apiece.

Guralnick, who was seen looking surprised following the goal, says he was “shocked” the puck went in the net, per The Detroit News. Guralnick has been photographing the Red Wings for nearly three years, but this is undoubtedly his first career goal.

“You’re throwing it in, hoping to get possession and poor Lindgren. He doesn’t even leave his crease. I mean he’s not cheating at all. It just hits him, right in the back of the leg and that’s a funny carom,” ESPN+ analyst and former NHL defenseman Erik Johnson said during ESPN’s Wednesday Night Hockey broadcast.

The play was protested almost immediately, and the NHL put it under official review.

“Carlson’s furious, saying this hit the camera on the way in,” Johnson added.

“There’s a little camera hole where the photographers can take a picture,” added commentator John Buccigross.

ESPN’s NHL rules analyst and former NHL official Dave Jackson chimed in: “Well John, I wish I had a definitive answer for ya… to the best of my knowledge, if the camera was sticking out of the hole… then I believe this goal is coming back. But if the camera is not there and it simply hits the glass, the protrusion of the glass, it will be a good goal.”

Earlier this season, photographer Denny Simmons had his lens shattered by a puck while covering the Nashville Predators.

The NHL determined that the puck did, in fact, hit the glass that covers the camera hole, rather than Guralnick’s camera, and the goal counted.

“I’ve never seen anything like that and we might never see it again,” said Washington Capitals coach Spencer Carbery after the game. “There’s a hole in the glass for cameras with a little door to close it, and the puck hit the hole just as the photographer was trying to close it.

“The League said if the puck had hit a camera, it wouldn’t have counted, but since it hit the door, it was a good goal.”

A Reddit user claims to know Guralnick and commented on the sequence of events.


”I know the photographer and this cracked me up live,” Reddit user rakeif writes. “One time he got his wrists broken shooting between the benches, so I was like ya know what we deserves this goal. He’d be horrified, but receiving an official NHL stat line would be hilarious. Or the puck!”

Although the lucky camera hole bounce enabled the Red Wings to tie the game and force overtime, earning a crucial point in the standings, the Capitals prevailed in the shootout.


Image credits: ESPN+, Hulu, NHL