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.

#1000

I only saw the game from about half-way through the 2nd. But some quick impressions:

• What did I tell you about Alfredsson? Effort at both ends, PK and PP time, and a point. Too bad he couldn't grab a goal, but a win for his 1000th game is what he said he wanted. Class act all the way. The Ottawa Senators will definitely be retiring his #11 once he's done with it.
• LeClaire gave up two goals, one on a bad play by Karlsson, one on a bad line change by the on-ice players. I don't blame him for either of those. He didn't have to make any circus stops, which means that in general the team was playing well in front of him.
• Mike Fisher was on. Two goals and a couple of posts, with another half-dozen quality chances. I give full credit to his linemates for helping to make this happen.
• Karlsson made some excellent plays to compensate for the brain fart that led to the first goal. This kid will be an excellent player one day.
• The own-goal on Florida credited to Neil shows what kind of night it was. The Senators were going to get the bounces, and the Panthers were not.

It was a good game for Ottawa, a nice steady game where the outcome was never really in doubt. This is a good foundation to look to the post-season from.

Almost Time To Tune Out

Both Friday's and Saturday's games were "playoff-style" hockey, in that there was a lot of grinding (ie hitting, clutching, grabbing, punching) and laughably inconsistent officiating.

The Saturday game, which I watched all the way through, was especially bad. I think there was only one penalty call the first 30 minutes, and that was waived when the play resulted in a Florida goal.

After that, it was like the refs discovered that this shiny thing attached to their hands could, you know, make actual sound or something and they began to use it -- mostly to Ottawa's detriment.

And they say the officials don't like "deciding" games by calling penalties. Horse s--t. NOT calling a penalty is even more as much "deciding" a game, in that the game being played stops bearing a resemblance to the actual rule book (passing though that resemblance may be during the regular season).

But it was good to see that no matter how hard the officials tried to hand the game to Florida, they just couldn't convert on it.

Each year I get tired of the blatantly bad officiating and figure that I'll tune out of the playoffs. Last year was easy since the Senators didn't make the post-season. I could watch what I wanted, if I wanted, and if it wasn't entertaining I had no problem turning it off.

But if the rest of the season is going to be like this, I just might wish the team good luck in the post season and tune out early.