Knee Jerks

Lessard getting a five-minute major and a game misconduct for his hit in Florida on Thursday is stupid beyond belief. It was a clean hit on the puck carrier. The fact that Timmins got spun around a bit gave the officials the opening they needed to strongly disapprove of that kind of conduct*.

We've talked about the vague bullshit that is the charging rule before. Almost a year ago, as it happens.

The league wants to be seen to be sending a message -- the problem is, the message being sent is "we're a bunch of over-reacting, knee-jerk idiots".

I'm almost a bit sorry that Florida had to eat the bad karma that results in Karlsson firing up his game and leading Ottawa to the 2-1 victory.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Oh! And not to be out done -- the refs in Boston give Chara a boarding penalty for a play where the player hit the ice before the boards! Like the announcer says: how can it be boarding if the player hit the ice first!
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*= and lets not get into the total hypocracy that is the playoffs, where this kind of play would be so routine it would not be commented on, let alone cause a stoppage in play. The league can't have it both ways.

Whambulance

Having watched the video (and enjoyed the gory close-up) of Bruins' defense Chara spreading Montreal's Pacioretty into the center stanchion. Pacioretty lost consciousness due to the play and has damaged at least one vertebra.

Personally I agree with the on- and off-ice calls of this play -- it was a late hit on a player who had already chipped on the puck. That's text book interference, and that's what Chara served two minutes for.

The howls from the Montreal fan base can be ignored as partisan ignorance. With the way the random Wheel Of Discipline spins in the NHL, it was quite possible that this might have been seriously punished; the media loves to get out in front of these things so they can fill the moments until the next game with "I told you so" type comments.

The League's result of the Wheel Of Discipline is actually the right call. This was an unfortunate injury from a play, which while being "against the rules", was not worthy of further punishment.

This is not the kind of "violence" that the NHL needs to get rid of. The dangerous hits blindsiding players (such as claimed Spezza earlier this year) and the hits to the head (such as has claimed Crosby's year) have to go.

And the fighting has to go to, but for me that's an old saw.

I'm no fan of violence in hockey, but I don't think this incident is really worthy of the coverage it is getting.

Attention Boo-Birds:

Stop booing Zdeno Chara every time Boston comes to town.

There's no reason to. Ottawa made a decision to go with Wade Redden instead. Chara went somewhere he was wanted, somewhere he could grow into a leadership role.

You can't blame Chara for Redden's lack of performance.

Booing Chara makes the city look like it is populated by a bunch of ignorant hicks.

Just. Stop. Doing it. Thanks.

That said, let's again pretend the first period didn't happen on Tuesday. Letting the Boston players set up camp totally unchallenged in front of Elliot was inexcusable. The Boston players had a good, leisurely look at every incoming shot and inevitable rebound, and the resulting chaotic scramble was always going to end badly for the Senators. I don't think Elliot was totally blameless, but I think that nothing short of a miracle worker could have prevented them.

At the Boston end, their defenders kept pushing the Senators to the edges of their zone, and gave up only a few real opportunities, with Thomas being adequate to the challenge most of those times.

For the second and third periods, the Senators played tighter, but one never got the feeling that Boston was in any serious danger of being challenged.

Kovalev was one bright spot on Tuesday. While I am not a fan of this "flip the puck into the goaltender's pads" that he has been doing in response to "put the puck on the net" exhortations that everyone is fond of making, Kovalev made a few opportunities happen, one of which resulted in Kuba's goal. On a night when few Senators stepped up, Kovalev continued his improved play.

I've been waiting for the shoe to drop on this Senators team. Their run since Alfredsson's injury has been nothing short of incredible, but with Spezza gone Michalek is misfiring, and while you could say Alfredsson's leadership isn't being totally missed, it goes without saying that things would be better with him.

Things don't get any easier for this team -- Washington is next on Thursday. I'm not hopeful. Florida visits on Saturday. That one could go either way. But in the short term, things are going to get challenging for the Senators, and they need to be producing a little better effort on the ice than they did during the first on Tuesday.

(And then I watched the Juniors OT. I'm just everyone's lucky charm tonight, aren't I.)