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Before the puck drops on Game 6, let's set the record straight about what transpired in Game 5 to make tonight's contest necessary.

Were your Dallas Stars victims of a bad call – a really bad call – from the officials, specifically the replay officals?

Absolutely.

You can watch it over and over, and there simply is no way you can say definitively, "Yes, there it is. That's a distinct kicking motion Brenden Morrow is using to score that goal."

You can say, "I think he did? Maybe?"

Or you can say, "The puck's traveling so fast, it's really hard to believe he knew exactly where it was going to hit and prepared himself to kick it in and did so."

The second sentiment is a lot more logical than the first, but it doesn't matter. If you can't say it definitively was a kicking motion, you can't sit there in your Toronto office and overturn a goal.

Sharks coach Ron Wilson, of course, said he saw it clearly from his spot on the bench 100 feet away with players in between him and the play, but that's Wilson. He sees and knows just about everything.

On the other hand, Sharks officials, including Sharks broadcasters, who by nature are going to see things San Jose's way, didn't expect it to be overturned.

Now did it cost the Stars this series? No.

Did it cost them the game? No.

The disallowed goal would have given Dallas a 2-0 second period lead. The Sharks instantly would have increased the pressure as they eventually did in the third to tie the score.

No one knows if Morrow would have scored again at the end of the second period. The game would have changed.

It was a bad call, and it hurt the Stars, but they had chances to win that game and two more chances in this series. It will be a footnote, nothing more, when this thing is over.

But here's my problem.

Why is it even a rule?

Pucks deflect off sticks into the net. They deflect off legs into the net. A few years back, Dallas eliminated Edmonton in overtime when Sergei Zubov shot the puck off Joe Nieuwendyk's butt into the net.

If you can score with that body part, why not a foot?

At a time when the NHL is looking for any way to increase scoring, even considering bigger nets, why is this rule still in the books?

If eliminated, would we see a new wave of kicking specialists enter the league? Men in Bozo-The-Clown-type skates parked in front of the goaltender, deflecting pucks past him right and left with those oversized shoes?

I don't think so.

The rule reminds me of the 2003 Masters final round, in which Houston's Jeff Maggert was leading but had to penalize himself two strokes when he hit a shot out of a sand trap on the third hole and the ball hit him.

My scholarly brother, Pat, who thinks in a lawyerly fashion that escapes my limited education and who is no stranger to golf shots both bizarre and worthy of penalty, wrote me the next day:

"If the golf ball hits you, isn't that already an indication that something has gone quite wrong and that you haven't hit the shot you were hoping for? Why the additional two-stroke penalty? Or is there some trick shot with which I am unfamiliar that everyone would employ, chipping the ball into the air and then head-butting it onto the green?"

I didn't understand the logic behind that rule.

I don't understand the logic behind this one.

It didn't cost the Stars the series. That continues tonight.

It just needlessly costs the NHL some small measure of credibility which, for years, has been in short supply.