Game 2

Well, game two is underway and it only too a minute for the referees to interfere with the play, almost generating a scoring chance for the Blackhawks.

On a fun note during the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast, in the pre-game blathering, Scott Oake had Manon Rheaume in for an interview. She has a biopic coming out about her and was at the arena for publicity.

Back in 1992, in the Bolts’ inaugural season, she tried out for the team and was signed. She ended up playing a period in an exhibition game, and became the first woman to ever suit up and play for an NHL team. She later won a silver medal at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano. It’s a great story and I may go see the movie if it comes out up here.

But back to the present, Tampa just took the lead on a great sequence in which their checking line went into the Chicago zone against the Blackhawks top line and put the pressure on for 17 seconds before Paquette scored on a really nice play in which he stepped around Saad and then fired the puck past an attempted block by Toews and into the net. It’s his first goal since the Detroit series. You can see that after his move on Saad, it looked like Crawford expected him to keep skating outside but he cut back inside against Toews and this left a gap on Crawford’s stick side for the shot to go in.

And so it begins…

Well, the finals have finally begun. The Tampa Bay Bolts will host the Chicago Blackhawks at the Amelie Arena in Tampa. The arena has its own website but it’s the kind that doesn’t easily give up the address for the place.

Over the first period, the game is one-sided in play although the score is but 1-0 Tampa. Although Tampa is the stronger team so far, Ondrej Palat has hands of stone tonight. Especially on the power play, he wasn’t able to take even a gentle pass without mishandling it.

Weak penalty by the ref against Tampa. Apparently it is his first Stanley Cup Final game. The refereeing has been fairly mediocre for much of the playoffs. Later on in the game, I’m sure that far greater transgressions will go uncalled. This combination of calling incidental contact and overall inconsistency, along with the inability of the refs to not interfere in the play have irritated me more than I can remember in any other playoffs.

The game has the lowest amount of contact that I can recall so far. The game that Tampa is playing is based on their speed and puck control pressure and Chicago is having challenges with it. Unlike Anaheim or Minnesota or Nashville, Tampa isn’t taking it to Chicago physically. And apparently, without having any physicality to respond to, Chicago is playing their most docile game yet. Lots of skating by both teams but very little hitting. There hasn’t been a lot of shots from the point, which means there hasn’t been any shot blocking either. Maybe they just need some time to get going after their layoff. Having said that, I expect it to be a very good series.

Speaking of hands, Alex Killorn looked like the second coming of Dave Andreychuk on the first goal, waiting patiently for a flipping puck before slapping it backwards out of the air and into the net. Standing only a couple of feet in front of him was Steven Stamkos, who is pretty good at this sort of thing himself. Stamkos raised his stick towards the puck but then pulled it back. It doesn’t look like Killorn said anything as he was concentrating too fiercely on the puck but Stamkos read the moment and pulled his stick away so as not to distract Killorn or accidentally make contact with anything. Seabrook meanwhile, was alone in front of the net, covering nobody, allowing both the Tampa players an infinite amount of time to make the play and score the goal. I’m also curious what Crawford was thinking as he waited for the puck the floated through the air, seemingly in slow motion. Despite the absence of either defence or goaltending on this play, it was a great goal.

Funny, early in the second period, Johnson and Seabrook both went down in a heap but no penalty was called. Glenn Healy thinks that Seabrook should have been called but when I watched the replay, Johnson scissored his legs around Seabrook’s and tripped him.

The third period is awful. Half-way through, I don’t think Tampa has any shots. I commented earlier that they like to play defence through puck control, but here, they’re not doing much of anything. Chicago is applying pressure but not yet doing much with it. With both teams sitting on their hands, I’d probably give the edge to Chicago but we’ll see. If you let them do stuff, eventually they will. Oops! Chicago just scored to tie the game.

In the last game against Anaheim, I saw Chicago coach Joel Quennville smile for the first time, ever. He just roared out a cheer for the goal now. Crazy times.

Chicago just took the lead on a goal by Vermette. Brown just coughed up the puck in the slot and Vermette wandered up and took a great shot that seems to have then touched Brown’s stick and deflected up over Bishop’s glove, off the post and into the net. Brown need two cuffs to the back of the head for this play. For what it’s worth, this is another case that Bishop went down too early.

Well, Chicago just took the first game in what was probably the most boring game of the playoffs so far. I expect that Saturday night’s game two will have a little more intensity.

Caps vs Rangers, Game Six

This is a pretty good game.

Ward has been in on all of the Washington goals. He should be their top star of the night, and first star if the Caps win. On the third Caps goal, it looked like he took a skate to the head while sliding through the crease. Initially I was worried that he took it across his cheek but apparently not. If it hit him, it hit his helmet. While on the bench afterward, it looked like he was trying to get someone to look at his helmet.

Late in the third, Ovechkin just mutilated, folded and spindled McDonagh. It started with a good hard wrist shot that Lundquist kicked out. McDonagh took the rebound and went back of the net to shoot it up around the boards. Ovechkin followed up the play by driving McDonagh into the boards. He was flying as he did so and the impact against the boards was nasty enough for the officials to stop play to give McDonagh a chance to drag his ass to the dressing room.

The Rangers just somehow held on during a long and relentless shift. Luckily for them, they were eventually able to clear it and thus gets their exhausted players off the ice.

With the score now 4-3, Washington is driving forward at a terrific pace.

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Well, it’s over. The Rangers’ lead held up. They’re going to game seven, back in the Garden.

They did make Ward the second star of the game, with Kreider being the first. As Kreider was a one-man gang in the first and the Rangers did win, this is well selected.

As an aside, while Kreider’s opening goal was a great play, it wasn’t a great goal. His speed and power were in evidence as he muscled his way past Niskanen at really high speed as he drove straight to the net. If I could fault Niskanen, it would be for his angle of pursuit since he tried to cut off a skater who is faster than him. If he’d skated directly at the goal post, he might have gained a step and been in front of Kreider rather than behind him. As it was, it was pretty close. He did stop Kreider from getting a forehand shot and he did give his goalie an opportunity to step up though. To my initial point, the shot was a good backhand as he got it up off the ice while a defenceman was groping at him, but this shouldn’t have been a challenge for Holtby to stop.

The failures on this play were first by Alzner, who pinched on the left point when the puck wasn’t loose. Fast was able to bounce the puck off the boards up to the flying Kreider. Too late did Alzner see Kreider cranking it up, before Fast even made his pass. Worse, for most of the game, Washington’s defence were overly tentative at the blue line, seemingly afraid to pinch when the puck was there to take. This generated numerous scoring chances for the Rangers and eliminated some for Washington.

Next, Holtby was deep, deep in his crease when Kreider finally took his backhand shot. If he’d been at all assertive, he would have made the save just by being in the way. He could have easily been two feet out from where he was. Actually, in looking at the replay, there was a point, as the two skaters passed the hash marks, that Holtby could have stepped forward with a poke check as Kreider was busy holding Niskanen off with one hand and keeping the puck away from him with his stick hand.

While neither the announcers nor the analysts said a word about Holtby on this play, except that he was fooled, I’m pretty sure that the goalie feels differently about it.

While I was hoping that Washington would win, there might be one good thing out of this game. The commentary has been really weak. Instead of calling the game, too much time is spent gushing about how wonderful the players are. The time spent listening to them embarrass themselves about the uniquely stunning brilliance of Holtby and Lundquist, of how this is the best goaltending performance of all time, made me ill. While both goaltenders are very good, the announcers and analysts need to take a breath now and again. Note that this applies to both in-game blathering as well as that taking place during the intermission. Hopefully they do feel a bit chastised about their work and tone it down next game.

Feels weird watching a Rangers play-off game without Zuccarello.

On the Brink

No rest for the wicked, as the Habs and Bolts play again less than 24 hours after the awful ending to game three of their round two series.

At the end of the first, it’s been all Montreal so far. They’re playing well, they’re playing aggressively, and they’re not really making many mistakes.

Players who were not playing well yesterday, like De la Rose, are doing their job tonight. Pacioretty did something he hasn’t done much of so far since returning from his injury, he went to the net. Granted there wasn’t anyone checking him but it’s good to see it happen and him get rewarded. Markov, who was embarrassingly bad yesterday, and bad in other games as well, scored a lovely goal. He walked in on the left wing, completely invisible and uncovered to take a pass from Subban. The pass wasn’t perfect, being somewhat behind where it should have been but Markov calmly took it off his back skate, kicking it up to his stick and then lifting a puck over a thunderstruck Bishop for the first goal. He hasn’t scored in something like nine games.

Oddly, it’s the Bolts who are playing poorly and erratically. Their passes and clearing attempts keep hitting Montreal players, which is generating chances for the Habs.

Early in the second, the Habs just had a clean 2-1 but completely botched it. Well, seconds later, Desharnais wandered down the left wing and hammered a shot that Bishop couldn’t handle. Healy just pointed out what I mentioned yesterday, when he commented that the goal was a reward of sorts for playing a good game yesterday, especially after coming back from the flu.

Time for a goalie change after three goals on fourteen shots. Apparently Vasilevskiy has never played in a playoff game before, well, not an NHL playoff game before. He’s another monster, like Bishop, at 6’6″.

Well, Bishop looks a little stunned sitting on the bench. I don’t think they should worry about it. If Tampa feels that they need to win the series in four straight, then they have other problems. They can afford a loss.

Okay, this is weird. After a vicious punch/butt end to the face by Callahan, Montreal is on the power play. Parenteau is on the ice — intentionally. They have a lot more faith in him than I do. They even have Galchenyuk on the ice. He needs a good punch in the head to wake him up. He seems terrified to shoot the puck this post-season. Three times Subban passed to him and three times he quickly passed it away, the third to Petry since it seemed like Subban was trying to force him to shoot. But… it worked out here as Petry shot the puck and scored an easy one. Their power play lineup is new. In addition to the other two, Petry being on the ice is a good thing. He needs a lot more power play time. His shots get through the crowd. Anyway, they just doubled their power play scoring output for the post-season.

Thirteen seconds have passed since the power play goal. Gallagher celebrates it by scoring the fifth goal for Montreal. Will Bishop come back into the game? Tampa is playing awful but their goalies need to stop the puck occasionally. They seem to be on a death spiral here.

Healy just pointed out something useful. Montreal’s shots have been hard and accurate. Yesterday they were awful in this regard, being only able to hit shot blockers. I’m not sure why Healy isn’t behind the boards tonight but he’s doing a pretty good job tonight in the booth.

Tampa just scored on their power play. This worked out well for them. They got a grubby penalty called on Markov and then, on the actual power play, Pacioretty blocked a shot with his hand and quickly left the ice. Finally, Kucherov just scored after a nice set-up by Palat. They made it look really easy.

With just a few minutes left in the second, Vasilevskiy seems to be finding his footing. After stopping a breakaway by Weise and then another. This actually drew some lusty cheering by the crowd who haven’t had much to keep them involved.

Galchenyuk almost got a tap in after a lovely set of passes but couldn’t handle the puck in the crease.

The refs are trying to mess up the game though. A penalty was just called on Weise for cuffing Coburn who quickly dove to the ice and turtled. Pretty shameful. Coburn is another of the giants on the Bolts, being 6’5″ and 220 lbs. You could knock him over with a feather duster though.

Kypreos is being an idiot again. One of the default perspectives in sports is that when you are on the verge of being eliminated, you need to focus solely on the game at hand. You can’t win four games in a night so don’t lose focus by worrying about what happens next week. So between both periods, all he can offer up is that Montreal hasn’t ever come back from a three game deficit before so why not make history. Both intermissions. Sigh.

Early in the third, really early, seventeen seconds in, Tampa scores again to make it 5-2.

Moments later, Galchenyuk made a really good play in front of the Tampa goal. He didn’t score but it’s the first flash of offensive talent I’ve seen from him this series. This bodes well for the Habs.

On a side note, I just noticed that each of the four divisions are represented by two teams out of the final eight, and each of the pairs are playing each other. So when the semi-finals begin, each division will continue to be represented, at this point, probably by Chicago, Anaheim, Tampa Bay and whichever team can pull it out between Washington and the Rangers.

Well, the Canadiens won 6-2, so they’re headed back to Montreal for game five. Should be a lively game. Meanwhile, the evil Blackhawks broke the Wild over their collective knee to sweep them out of the playoffs, winning 4-3. Assuming Anaheim puts the Flames down, their coming series looks to be really interesting.

The Beat Goes On

Montreal and Tampa played game three of their series tonight.

Neither team started very well, but especially the Habs with all of them having hands of stone.

I don’t think that Parenteau or De la Rose are playing well enough to play as much as they are. When they aren’t going offside, they’re giving the puck away and creating opportunities for the Bolts. Of course, Markov continues to play poorly.

The officiating is poor again tonight. They gave Tampa a power play on a very weak play. When Gallagher was high-sticked however, in a manner that left a nasty mark on the bridge of his nose, even though it occurred right in front of the referee, there was no call.

Yet again the ref blew a play dead because he lost sight of the puck by being out of position.

I don’t know what it is this year but this is the third time I’ve seen this happen. Offhand, I don’t ever remember a playoff season where I saw it more than once.

Early in the third, Adam Sustr had his stick around Dale Weise on one side and his arm around him on the other but there’s no holding penalty. After Weise went down, Sustr threw up his arms in a pantomime to declare that he was clean.

Montreal needs to do a few things to improve their chances of winning. Despite dominating play for long stretches — in the second, Tampa didn’t get their first shot on net until about 18 minutes in — they had problems getting pucks on net. Either they hit a body or they go wide. They’re both too predictable and too slow with their releases, allowing Tampa to block almost everything that isn’t shot wide.

Of course, they need better luck as well with two posts hit.

Stamkos just took a tripping penalty, early in the third. For some reason, although the Bolts didn’t ever get control of the puck, they whistled the play dead just as Price made it to the bench. I have no clue why.

On a Tampa power play, based on a fairly weak penalty to Pacioretty, the Habs just had clean 2-1 breakaway. While it’s fair that the players were tired, they played like they didn’t know what to do. This should have resulted in a tie game. Why were they so tired? Well, it was a long power play and they had missed two opportunities to clear the puck, first when they won the draw but immediately gave it away, and then when they intercepted a pass, they gave it right back, making for a really long shift.

Gallagher just tied the game. Boyle hooked and then tackled him but too late to keep the puck out of the net. Offhand, Gallagher and Desharnais are probably playing the best tonight, along with Petry on defence.

Moments after the goal, Tampa had a spectacular chance to take the lead again with an uncovered Boyle given the puck in the slot. Price made the save then the puck slowly dribbled down his body, pausing for a moment atop his pad and then down onto the ice. For some reason, the ref didn’t blow the play dead. He couldn’t see the puck from where he was but he let Boyle charge in to dig at it. These guys are really inconsistent.

Desharnais just spent an entire shift being held by Namestnikov, most of it being pinned on the ice as the play went on around them. How is this not a penalty? Especially when Pacioretty got called for touching a player, or for that matter, when Bishop dove in the first to draw a penalty? Even the announcer likened it to being a rodeo down there the way Namestnikov was riding him. Of course, he still considered it good hockey.

With around two minutes left, Weise was tripped as he raced in on the right wing. He didn’t go down instantly however so there was no call.

Tampa just scored with less than a second left on the clock. Sigh. What a disorganised mess the Montreal play was for the last thirty odd seconds. There were probably four or five botched actions in that time that kept the chances coming for Tampa during this time.

Healy is blathering about Tampa not quitting. It’s true, they didn’t but there’s no reason why they would. What he should be talking about is how Montreal did quit. With 43 seconds left, Mitchell took the puck behind his own net and failed to clear it, giving it to the defenceman at the left point. After somehow managing to get the puck out over the blue line, three skaters, including the now tripped Mitchell, immediatley headed off, even though the puck only went a few feet past centre ice. This allowed a three-man rush by Tampa which didn’t go anywhere but as Pacioretty took the puck in the corner, he wheeled and feebly backhanded it off a Tampa skate. Again, the Habs got the puck back and Petry whipped it around the boards and out to centre ice. Again, it was right on Garrison’s stick, who flipped it back into Montreal territory.

Despite never having control of the puck, three Montreal skaters are on the forward side of the centre ice zone and another is changing. So a single Hab is left to defend against Stamkos and Palat. The puck gets deflected wide of the net however, and bounces back onto Plekanec’s stick at the top of the circle and he skates out to centre ice. Pacioretty skates from where he was open to where he is covered and then Plekanec passes to him. Gallagher meanwhile is open and cruising up the middle of the ice. Palat takes the puck back and into the zone. Four Habs are now in their own zone but nobody is covering anybody. Hedman is able to walk in with the puck while Johnson sets up in the crease. An easy pass and an easy goal… with a single second left on the clock. Give Hedman a biscuit for making a good rush, outwaiting the wretched, falling Markov and making a perfect pass onto Johnson’s stick. Give Johnson one for calmly closing the deal, putting it between Price’s legs rather than off his pad, which many players would have done.

Therriault looks livid. At least, he looks florid as he struggles to maintain a mask. The Habs team for those last seconds reminded me of the Maple Leafs in the way they couldn’t do really mundane tasks, like clear a puck past centre and get at least one player change done correctly.

Funny but earlier in the game, the announcers were talking about all the shot blocking that Tampa was doing. Then one of them asked how many actual blocked shots there were, and the answer was 18 at the time. They paused because that’s not a particularly high number and then commented that it felt like more. What they had missed was that probably half of the ‘blocks’ that they made weren’t on shots but were on passes and clearing attempts. They interrupted the path of the puck constantly throughout the game but a limited number were of shots on net.

So the series is now 3-0 in Tampa Bay’s favour. Bishop has won his last ten games against Montreal. I believe that they are undefeated against Montreal this season. If they can bury them tomorrow, that will make for some cold-blooded revenge after last season’s sweep by the Habs. Apparently, this is the third playoff series between the two teams and the two prior were both won in four straight (Tampa won the first on their Stanley Cup run in 2004. I remember watching them play and wondering at how good both teams were at fundamentals compared to the Leafs. Some things never change).

More Weak Officiating

After watching Tampa Bay disassemble the Habs last night, I watched the Blackhawks beat the Wild in Chicago.

There were a few botched calls during the game which surprised me. I’m not sure which was worse but the first one involved Johnny Oduya tripping Chris Stewart with an arm around his skate. Taking Stewart down this way didn’t just prevent a shot on net, it also caused Stewart to slam dangerously hard into the boards.

I was wondering if they would be giving a penalty shot for the play. The ref was in position, you can see his skate at the left edge of the image.

Johnny Oduya had his right arm wrapped around Chris Stewart’s leg on the play.

But they didn’t even stop the play until the puck went down the ice. For what it’s worth, Oduya didn’t celebrate the hit. I think he was worried first that he’d get a penalty and second, that he’d have killed Stewart.

More oddness, the HNIC crew, including both Bob Cole and Greg Millen, didn’t even notice the trip.

This got me wondering… am I a complete idiot? Am I imagining things? Did the rules change without me being informed?

Well, I did do a quick search for ‘oduya trip’ on google. Of the first four hits (one was for a trade rumour since those often come up while teams are on a ‘trip’), we get the following headlines…

• Blackhawks’ Oduya saves goal with nasty trip on…
• Blackhawks Oduya saves goal with rough trip that knocked…
• Johnny Oduya trips Chris Stewart, doesn’t get penalized…

Early in the third period, Patrick Sharp came up behind Mikko Koivu near the boards and hit the back of Koivu’s skate with his own, knocking Koivu down within a foot of the boards. Koivu flailed to try and keep his balance and as he spun around his stick hit Sharp’s legs and Sharp went down. This naturally resulted in a penalty for Koivu. That he had been tripped by Sharp… who cares? It’s sort of like how a player can get up a head of steam and rush the goalie. If a defenceman touches him, he can take out the goalie for free.

While Chicago didn’t score on the power play, Sharp did score shortly after the penalty ended, making it 3-1. Again, the announcers weren’t paying attention.

Anyways, after the ruination of the Senators, I’m finding the failures of the officiating to be discouraging. Mistakes are inevitable but there seems to be a certain cluelessness that wears me down and makes me enjoy the game less.

Round Two Needs Better Play by Play

I’m watching the second game of the second round of the series between the Montréal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa had won the first game of the series on Thursday.

All season long, Montréal has had problems scoring early. This isn’t new. However, during the playoffs, they’ve had horrible, revolting problems scoring on the power play. Now during the season, they had a below average power play. The league average was 47 while they scored but 40 goals. Tampa meanwhile, had 53 power play goals during the season. So far in the play-offs, Montréal has a single power play goal, in 23 attempts.

Montréal had an early power play as Matt Carle received a penalty for an attempted mugging of Gallagher after a late scrum in the Tampa crease.

With 16:42 left in the first period, play-by-play announcer Jim Hughson let us know that the Habs still can’t score a first period goal.

With 15:33 left in the first, two whole minutes later, the HNIC crew is back to beating this horse, throwing up a 1st period goal differential factoid graphic that the Habs have scored 44 in the first and allowed 55 in the first. Not sure when these graphics are prepared but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were prepared in advance of the game as it must surely reduce the opportunities for error.

With 13:58 left in the period, now a minute and half later, we’re sent into a commercial break by being informed that it’s another scoreless start.

With 13:12 left, we’re told that while the Plekanec line had a good shift, it is stressed that again, there were no results.

The overwhelming narrative here is that the Habs didn’t score in the first period. But the first period isn’t even one-third over yet. Oh… by the way, with 12:40 left in the period, or half a minute after the last analytical gem, Montréal scored to take the lead.

Back to the stats displayed in the graphic, of them scoring only 44 goals in the first period over the course of the season. Seems awful, eh? Brutal perhaps. How did they even make the playoffs?

Oh… could it be because between the second and third period, they outscored their opponents 177-134? A goal differential of 43. Divide that by 2 and you have a 21.5 goal differential over their opponents over the second and third period of the game, or double the advantage they give up in the first. Montréal won the division by giving up the fewest goals in the league while have a slightly below average offence.

Strangely enough, when the Calgary Flames don’t score in the first, what we hear is that it’s really incredible how they outscore their opponents in the third period.

It really feels like the ‘story’ of the Habs this series has been decided already. Given that there is an actual problem with their power play, that would benefit from some analysis, this is really annoying to me.

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As a far afield aside, Adam Oates has joined the broadcast team, providing an opportunity for Stroumboulopoulos to irk me by addressing him as ‘Coach’. Over the decades, there have been numerous coaches who have served as TV analysts in hockey, as well as in sports such as football. I don’t recall any of them ever being referred to as ‘Coach’, not even Don Cherry who is famous as a coach, his own segment on HNIC being called ‘Coach’s Corner’.

One of the more prominent such cases is Bill Cowher who after an undistinguished playing career, went on to coach the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers for fifteen seasons, including amongst them, the Super Bowl 2005 season. He is highly regarded as a coach. The other analysts, including hall of fame players, call him ‘Coach’, rather than ‘Bill’.

Adam Oates played for nineteen seasons in the NHL. At the time of his retirement, he was the fifth highest scoring player in league history. As such, he is in the hall of fame. He is highly regarded as a player.

In 2012-13, the abbreviated season, he was named coach of the Washington Capitals. The team had a good season, winning their division after a slow start. The following season was not as successful, with the team finishing fifth in their division (out of eight) and out of the playoffs. He is no longer Washington’s head coach and at this time, has 130 games coached at the NHL level.

Last year, in the playoffs (if I recall correctly) he began doing some analysis in between periods during HNIC broadcasts. P.J. Stock would call him ‘Coach’, the same way that Bill Cowher is addressed. For some reason this wears me out. Oates achieved much as a player but essentially nothing as a coach. As such, I think it is weird to address him in this way, especially since he isn’t currently a coach.

Anyway, tonight Oates is providing his opinions when the go back to the studio, and Stroumboulopoulos is calling him ‘Coach’. Sigh.

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Aside aside… Scotiabank has a commercial about a kid and his dad and playing hockey. What number was the hero dad? Why, number 14. Why 14? I’m guessing he’s a Davey Keon fan, even though he looks a little young to me. Corporations using code to sing their bona fides.

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Final aside…

With 24 seconds left in the first, Tampa scored to tie the game.

Teams that can’t score goals cannot give up last-minute goals. It’s deadly in general but especially when goals, and leads, are precious.

Well, that was disappointing

Well, for six teams, the playoffs are over. That Wild are in, the Habs are in. Blues are out, Senators are out. I didn’t watch the Wild game which was on in the afternoon as 4-1 games aren’t always interesting.

However, I did watch the Senators-Habs contest and while it was mostly good, the outcome, and the way it came about, disappointed me.

While the final score was 2-0, the second Montreal goal was an empty net goal, scored with a second left in the game (actually .03 seconds).

While Ottawa was kept off the scoresheet… improbably for the first time in the entire season, they did score a goal which an out of position referee Chris Lee disallowed.

The referee was behind the net to Price’s left. The play was on Price’s right. Mark Borowiecki took a shot which Price saved but he left a rebound which Gabriel Pageau shoved into the net. The referee apparently assumed that Price had not only made the save but had either caught the puck or had it under his control. With it out of his sight, he whistled the play dead a fraction of a second before Pageau scored.

Photo: Postmedia

I’m not sure what you can do in such a situation where the referee’s error makes such a difference in the game. Worse, the officials had been letting the players run the goalies all night until this play.

Kudos to the Senators and Dave Cameron for taking such a hit with such grace. While shots on goal are often a flaky measurement, it’s still worth noting that the first period of the game had both teams tied at 13 shots apiece. Over the last two periods, Ottawa outshot Montreal 30-7. If the referee had done his job, Montreal wouldn’t have been able to forego any offensive effort and it would have been a much different game.

There was a strange, painful moment after the play when the ref, with another of the officials nearby, stood behind the Montreal goal, looking down at the ice through the mesh, knowing that he had made a grievous error.

As an aside, the NHL.com site really underplays the disallowed goal. The primary article on the game never mentions the play at all. The secondary article drily mentions, in the second last paragraph, that, “…The play had been blown dead.” The Montreal Gazette also underplays the ‘disallowed’ goal. The Ottawa Citizen probably gave it the most accurate coverage.

Senators season ends with excruciating Game 6 loss

Price, Canadiens shut out Senators, win series

Stanley Cup Playoffs – Day 3

It’s looking pretty tight so far in the playoffs. Montréal has taken a 2-0 lead over Ottawa, but the other three series were each tied up.

Montréal is playing well enough to beat Ottawa but only with some luck and some breakdowns on Ottawa’s part, especially for the winning goal.

Washington clawed their way back from a 3-1 lead to win it 4-3.

In Vancouver, the Canucks hammered the Flames in a tough, physical match. Due to the scrum at the end of the game, Calgary’s coach Bob Hartley was fined $50K.

Finally, in the best game of the night, Nashville put the boots to the Blackhawks with four unanswered goals to win 6-2. Chicago goalie Corey Crawford, who is a really good goalie at any time, typically gets even tougher in the playoffs, especially after a loss. It was surprising to see him treated so poorly two games in a row — that’s 9 goals surrendered in 4 periods. So in each period, he’s giving up as many goals as he normally does in a full game.

I’m not sure how many of the goals he should be blamed for as Nashville played well, especially in the first and third periods. It seems however, that he’ll be replaced by game one’s star Darling for the third game back in Chicago. That’s gotta be a tough choice for Quenneville to make.

NHL Playoffs — Games One

The NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs are underway. Over the past two days, all of the sixteen teams have played their first game. I haven’t been able to watch too much of it so far but what I’ve seen looks pretty good.

With Rogers buying of hockey rights last year, there are some changes to the view ability of the games. I can now watch four games a day for the first time ever. This is good.

As the Leafs aren’t a playoff team (and I don’t merely mean that they missed the playoffs this year), I don’t have a horse in the race so I don’t care too much who wins and loses but as a generality, I will be cheering for the underdog.

After watching Subban’s ugly slash of Stone on Wednesday, and his crybaby act of showing surprise at even getting a penalty for it, I’ll be cheering for the Senators. I didn’t mind him so much throwing a tantrum after taking off his jersey since it’s reasonable to protest being kicked out of the game (although I think it was the right call), but he was protesting the referee’s call before the ref had his arm up. Plus, I didn’t like the way he adjusted his grip or the way he nailed Stone just above the glove. I’m hoping he gets suspended for the attack.

Elsewhere, I’ll be cheering for the Jets (over Ducks), Wild (over Blues), Predators (over ‘Hawks), and Rangers (over the Penguins).

While Pittsburgh played better than I expected, I think the team needs a rest.

I’ve mixed feelings about the Canucks-Flames, Bolts-Red Wings, or the Islanders-Capitals. I like both the Canucks and the Flames and don’t care too much about the other four teams.

Best save so far… Chicago’s Darling in the 3rd period last night against Ryan Ellis. Colin Wilson, standing just above the crease to Darling’s left, took a pass from Mike Ribeiro and instead of trying to score himself, backhanded a blind pass across the crease to a completely open, uncovered and unseen Ellis who hammered the puck at the net. It was almost a spectacular goal.

Darling however threw himself across the goal to slam his right skate against the post so violently that I’m surprised that he didn’t need to have his skate sharpened afterward. He almost knocked the net off its moorings. What I really liked about the play was, in addition to the incredible pass by Wilson, was how Darling began his motion with his left skate outside the left post but somehow generated enough force to throw himself hard against the right post. His decision as to how to handle the play was nearly instantaneous. In the replay, you can see how quickly he turned his head as the pass went in front of him and then how sudden he launched himself, and finally, after he hit the post and made the save, how he almost fell over since he’d committed so fully to getting his skate up against the post.

Darling makes outstanding pad save on Ellis Video

Apparently, Darling is 6’6″ tall, which is what he needed to be to reach across the goal that way. The blade of his left skate is still past the left post, even as he’s shaking the net with his right.

I still want Nashville to win but my respect for the Blackhawks’ abilities is still there. I may even be mellowing a bit in my dislike for Kane. I haven’t seen him act like a suck all year.