Last night's tilt between Montreal and Ottawa left everyone unhappy. Whether you read the Montreal blog or the Ottawa one, everyone has something to complain about.While the Senators were clearly jobbed of a goal late in the second period, Montreal fans can point to the total lack of Ottawa penalties as proof that they were not getting it all their way either.
This definitely has an effect on the flow of the game. While Montreal only really showed up to play for the first period, the lack of penalties called as Ottawa could apparently do no wrong (except when scoring, yuk yuk yuk) provided little incentive to work that little bit harder. Ottawa having that goal called back could have totally deflated the team had Montreal not already quit on them, and Ottawa then took gratuitous advantage of the "compensatory" officiating in the 3rd.
The officiating has to be fixed. While everyone wants to make sure that the officials on the ice get the call right, the emphasis has to be on getting the call right first. Officials deliberately not calling penalties is just as influencing to the game's flow as deliberately calling penalties.
We have to decide if we want the game decided by the players or the officials.
And if we can ever get that sorted, we can then move on to deciding if we want the game played by the rule book as it stands, or as it is currently interpreted.
Fix the officiating, then we can talk about changing the rules.
