The L.A. Kings' Explanation For Last Night's Clock Discrepancy Is Bullshit. Here's Why.

The Los Angeles Kings' explanation (via GM Dean Lombardi) for last night's clock disaster that gave them a win over Columbus is ludicrous for two reasons. The first, and again quoting Lombardi in the Los Angeles Times:

The delay is just recalibrating for the clock moving too quickly during the 10–10ths of a second

Ten tenths of a second is one second. The clock was delayed for more than a second, meaning that if he were telling the truth, we'd have seen the clock skip an entire second. This obviously did not happen. (His description of electrons slowing down, meanwhile, should give any physicist the fantods.)

But perhaps he meant to say that the clock ran too fast in the previous ten seconds. We can measure this, fortunately, because we know the precise speed at which video broadcast on FSN Ohio is run: 59.94 frames per second. So by syncing timecode running at 59.94 fps to the live video, we can see exactly how long the period was extended by the clock stoppage (we note here that the power play clock was stopped as well during this moment). How long? 77 frames, which comes out to 1.28 seconds—more than 300% the amount of time allegedly left on the clock when the Kings scored. The above video should explain all this visually.

Does it matter? No, not really, and we'd have left it alone if not for Lombardi's absurd attempt to explain it away as being legitimate. Cop to the mistake—it's not like the NHL is going to do anything about it anyway—and move on, so we can. [FSN Ohio]