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.