egroen

I thought the post was fine and typed in a response only to see it deleted. Not sure what the reason could have been. That ice sucked... glad game 7 is in Detroit.

A lot of things were stacked against the Wings last night - but they should have given it a hell of a lot better effort. The ice was terrible - you wanna f*ck with a puck-possession team? Turn the heat up. The refs were even out there squeegying water on the ice. The whistles for the crease were laughable -- Osgood gets a full 3-4 seconds before a whistle every time he covers the puck. Hiller gets a whistle within a second, when he does not have the puck and the rebound is bouncing out to center ice. I am still scratching my head over Neidermayer sitting on Holmstrom and slamming him into the ice, while both refs are 5 feet away and staring right at them. If the Wings were not already on a power play, that would have been called 10 times out of 10. Blatant interference completely ignored and textbook instigating within 5 minutes of the end of the game - totally thrown out the window. I dunno -- this game gives conspiracy theorists a lot of fuel, but in reality it is just watching the Ducks in their element -- they push the line constantly and essentially dare the refs to call them on something. If your star players are dirty, the refs will not dare call anything on them, as they do not want the game decided on a penalty.

Holmstrom's elbow was in the middle of play, and he deserved two minutes for it (but so did Wiz deserve 2 for the crosscheck beforehand). Neidermayer is throwing this crap at the end of the game, after the whistle. It is absolutely suspendable under the current rules. Will it be? Of course not. And I agree that that should not deserve a suspension, but then change the rules and quit being so damn inconsistent.

It's crazy - so they are saying the Lady Byng winner and an injured Rafalski were willing combatants against guys twice their size? I mean, I love 'em, but these are not guys that throw the gloves. Argh. Whatever.

I have him just inside the top 50.

.... And Pronger.

What do you mean by "one of the best ever"? Top 10? Of course not. Top 20? No way. Top 100? Sure.

Don't get me wrong, it's a really stupid rule - but I would say that was pretty textbook "instigating within 5 minutes". There is nothing in the rules which state the "instigating" has to be done by a 4th line goon. Once again, the NHL ignores its own rules, which were stupid to begin with, without actually addressing it.

So whatever happened the the auto-suspension for instigating within 5 minutes of the end of the game? Is that just ignored now?

Datsyuk needed to take that to the net, damnit. refs on a roll here.

Just enough time left to score a goal and have it waived off...

why do they do this to me??? do I dare to hope? of course

Shooting the puck the second they gain the blue line is really working out great for the Wings.

They have to double and triple check that they can't see it, before they blow the whistle because they can't see it (after a quick fourth check).

Slow whistle - shocker.

WHAT IS GOING ON???

Babcock needs to clue these guys in on that shots directly to the goalie's chest are LOW PERCENTAGE SHOTS!!!

wow, another chest shot for hiller and the fastest frickin' whistle i have ever seen. this is f***ed up!

Man, Mickey and Kenny sure are grumpy tonight... can't blame them, though.

alright, if helm is going to get all these minutes, he needs to learn how to shoot.

Oh, come back Pavel.... I wanna see this guy again!

Oh, this brings back so many horrible playoff games from the past....

I just bet our life's savings... it's worth it.

Keep going - SCORE!!!