Hilariously Bad Officiating

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.

Alfredsson's Injury Points The Way

First, the hit from Wednesday:Despite the baying for blood, based on this highly pixelated video I would call it an unfortunate hockey incident. Hockey is a contact sport, and sometimes the contact is felt a little more than other times. So the fact that there was no penalty on the play doesn't bother me.

The word today is that Alfredsson is gone for four to six weeks. So he might be back before Spezza is, with maybe a couple of weeks to go before the Olympic break. Actually forget that, this is the guy who only missed, what, one game last year after breaking his jaw? Iron Man Alfredsson will be back in less than six, unless the injury is worse than we've been led to believe -- even though really he should rest easy and come back slowly. If he doesn't come back until after the Olympics it isn't the end of the world.

Because as we saw yesterday, this team may not get to the playoffs. Let's be honest here -- if Alfredsson is the one straw that makes the difference between playoffs or not, then this team is not ready to compete.

And that means the rebuilding has to continue. If we can get Spezza scoring again and find him another productive winger to go with Michalek, we'd be a lot further ahead. On the subsequent lines there is some tweaking we can do -- I think that if Cheechoo can find his mojo again, he would still be overpaid, but it would spread the scoring threat around even more.

Behind them we still have a lot to do to make the defense corps effective. Karlsson has potential -- his time in Bingo showed that -- but he is a couple of years away from being a top-two defender, and his small stature may always be a liability. Volchenkov and Phillips are top-four defense, easy, but behind them we have a whole lot of mediocrity -- guys who are good enough to fill out the defense corps at reasonable prices. Sure, Carkner brings other assets to the table, but he's not top-two and I don't think anyone would argue that.

In goal, I like LeClaire. I think his record thus far this year, as has Elliot's, suffers more from the lack of scoring up front and the lack of defensive discipline. Given decent defense, and more production up front, both of these guys are capable of holding the fort.

Of course this is all a bunch of hot air. Murray knows what needs to be done, and I'm sure he's working on doing it.

But as of now I would rather miss the playoffs and keep Alfredsson healthy for next year rather than rush him back just to squeek into the playoffs.

Merry Christmas

Please don't drink too much eggnog. Even if it is a cool refreshing glass of reality check.

Holiday Spirits

As your present this year, I've decided to pretend that last night didn't happen.

Not that the outcome was terribly surprising if it had happened. Defending Cup Champions, their rink... and what with Ottawa bringing their poor defensive team plan and a goalie ready to be lit up like a Christmas tree (welcome back, Mr. LeClaire!)...

At least the bloggosphere seems to recognize that the problem last night was defense, not goaltending. I guess that's a present for LeClaire.

Next game Saturday in Buffalo, before back home to meet Montreal on Monday.

Merry Christmas, Ottawa Senators fans!

300

Two players notched their 300th career point this weekend.

Mike Fisher did it on 143 goals and 157 assists over 574 games.

Jonathan Cheechoo did it on 168 goals and 132 assists over 475 games.

Congratulations to both players, and we all sincerely hope that their production on the ice only get better.

The Ruutu Hit

SenSay on the Ruutu hit last night:

So my issue is this; If Ruutu’s hit wasn’t a penalty, by the letter of the rulebook, how can a suspension be justified, without first altering the rules? This goes to integrity. You cannot create new rules out of thin air, based upon nefarious criteria, criteria I might add, that were not present in the past.

See also Steve Warne's comments:

They could try all kinds of things to clean things up. But read my lips. The NHL doesn’t give a crap. This is what they’re selling. Don’t like it? Too bad.

My view is that the officials should enforce the rules on the book before looking to enforce non-existent rules.

Honestly, it's this kind of naked brutality combined with the studied indifference of the on-ice officials, especially in PLAYOFF!!! hockey is what makes me wonder if I'm really a hockey fan or not.

UPDATE: no suspension for Ruutu. Just a fine. Which I guess means that the NHL admits it isn't really a violation of any rule, but they want to be seen to be somewhat discouraging of it.

Spezza's Year From Hell Gets Worse

Isn't that great? Jason Spezza out with a knee injury, could be three to six weeks, but it could also be two months. Unfortunately for him, this means no Olympics for him this year -- not that the Olympics were really in the cards the way he was playing. I mean look at Mike Fisher, who looks like he is having a career year, and even he isn't a shoe-in. The commentators last night were discussing his merits as a "specialist" in a checking or fourth line role.

But last night there was ugly all over the place. The Leafs won by virtue of the fact that they were less ugly when it counted. The "tying" no-goal with thirty-odd seconds to go was a fair cop -- Toronto was the better team last night and deserved the win. And really, that's what we need -- a Toronto team that is worth beating. I am tired of kicking puppies.

I'm not going to dump on Elliot -- lazy ass line changes deserve to be punished severely, and last night they were. Similarly Kuba was in the wrong place at the wrong time and deflected the wrong puck the wrong way, and it was Alfredsson's bad position on the play that let Beauchemin get the shot off.

On the good side though the Leafs gave up odd man rushes three times early in the second, and the Senators converted on one of them. And poor coverage of Spezza during the power play gave him the opportunity to get it right, which he did.

But aside from that, the big guns were fairly quiet.

I think that Spezza has been a big factor in creating opportunities for Michalek so far this year, so he and Alfredsson will have to find some chemistry but quick with whomever is cycled up with them.

Say what you want about Spezza's low production this year -- but the team is not improved with him sidelined.