John Tortorella responds to today's officiating controversy.

The National Hockey League was witness to a rather controversial bit of officiating on Sunday and following the game everyone wanted to see what the fallout would be when Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella took to the podium.

Unfortunately what we expected to be a fiery Tortorella at the post game press conference was rather subdued, but there may be a very good reason that Tortorella opted to bite his tongue in regards to this incident. First, Tortorella was asked about the bad call from the officials and he gave a straightforward answer.

"I'm gonna let the league explain it," said Torts following the game.

Blue Jackets insider Jeff Svoboda was quick to point out that Tortorella has recently been fined by the NHL for criticizing the performance of the league's officials, and as a head coach he is subject to the league's discipline on these matters. I have no doubt that if the always fiery Tortorella had provided more of a comment, it would have resulted in an expletive-laden tirade from the grumpy Blue Jackets coach.

Some have suggested that the recent fine from Tortorella could have resulted in a far more severe penalty this time around, although I have not seen that reported officially.

For those of you who missed the incident that has caused all the controversy, I would highly recommend you check out our initial report on this story here.

If you're just looking for a brief summary, essentially the Carolina Hurricanes were awarded a goal and 1:15 seconds of power play entirely by mistake after a botched review by the league's officials. The league corrected the mistake and eventually removed the 45 seconds that remained on the penalty, but inexplicably allowed the Hurricanes to retain the goal.

As you can see from this angle, the Canes were clearly offside.