For the second time in three games at Staples Center the NHL officials lived up to their reputation as the worst officiating in all sports and determined the outcome of a game. With the Rangers up 2-1 in the third, in pivotal game five, there was a collision near the boards where the King skater clearly put his leg out and tripped Zuccarello. The cross eyed ref called the penalty on Zuccs and lo and behold Gaborik scored the tying goal which eventually forced the game into two OT's and a Ranger loss when Martinez scored the game winner.
Needless to say the NHL highlights this am are glossing over the incident. Bettman's boys, and girls, know who pays them. You remember the first bad call. Brown sitting on Lundqvist while the Kings score a goal. No other sport would tolerate these missed and bad calls. This series should be back in New York for game six with the Rangers up 3-2.
But congratulations to the Kings. They are a big, tough, hard skating team. I'ts not their fault they had some help on the ice. It's the breaks. For the Rangers, the breaks were all bad.
The Rangers also should be congratulated. They gave it their all. Lundqvist was heroic. The defense, tired and battered, left it all on the ice. The offense, with a little bit of luck, might have won it with excellent chances by Kreider, Nash and McDonagh. But playing a tough team with aid from the officials was just too much for the Rangers to overcome. Maybe the Kings should have gotten a penalty for too many men on the ice.
More to come. In the meantime, great job Rangers. We are proud of you.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Refs Rob Rangers
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I have to confess, I wanted to comment on here yesterday but my broken heart wouldn't allow me the energy to do so. Let me start by saying how proud I am of this group of Rangers. I love these guys and they proved to us how close this team can be to a championship team. I love Vigneault. Great coach. His patience and ability to instill confidence in the players has gone a long way. His style includes all aspects of the game and is centered around having the puck which is something I was always on my soap box about when we had the dictator, so right then and there I am happy. Even though I am so proud, I can't help but be heartbroken at the same time. Pundit, I don't know if this is a blessing or a curse since it indicates a lot of losing on the Rangers part, but I never lived through a loss in the Cup Final. My parents have. They were heartbroken in 79, a year I remember because my parents went to the elimination game at the Garden against the Islanders but I was really too little to truly recall, so the heartbreak of losing wasn't really mine. I lived through years of going to school with horrid Islander fans, 1940 reminders and the heavy amounts of disrespect the Rangers consistently received before Messier came and changed everything. Then my family and I lived through the joys of the early 90's and the cup in 94 when we had tickets, so I experienced the elation of winning. But I have never seen the Rangers come this close to a Cup only to lose it...
...Underdog or not, we were right there with them, winning in every game except game 3 and 3 OT losses could have been wins with 2 of those 3 that should never have gone to OT. You are right about the officiating. Its been something the Rangers have had to overcome in every series. Their ability to rise above two opponents has been truly amazing to watch. My hat is tipped to them. They have kept their composure and moved on every time. We had goals disallowed in rounds 1 and 2 on questionable goalie interference calls. We had horrendous non calls like the obvious major to Prust and too many men on the ice for Montreal in literally all 6 games including game 1 where they scored a goal due to it and in game one of the finals against LA. Yup 7 straight games. We had two different definitions of goalie interference in Game 2 of the finals with a horrendous non call when Dwight King made incidental contact with Lundqvist preventing him from making a save and ultimately turning the game around. We couldn't overcome the penalty in game 5 that wrongly went to Zuccarello and led to Gaborik's game tying PP goal. Which came shortly after another goaltender interference call on Pouliot where he tried to get his butt around Quick who was way outside of his crease as Pouls pursued the puck. It sounds like a long list of whining but it really isn't. The confirmation I have on the legitimacy of my gripes is Kerry Fraser who I follow on twitter and who said the penalty on Zuccarello was such a terrible call, he was "turning blue." Poor Kerry. Took so much pride in being an NHL referee only to watch the NHL take all of dignity out of it with their incompetence. I try not to think about conspiracy theories but its hard not to let it enter your mind. You add in the horrendous schedule the NHL saddled us with in round 2 where the rangers played so many games in a short period of time they couldn't even have one practice until after game 4 and it just becomes one thing after the other. The NHL tried to blame Billy Joel and Lady GaGa for having concerts at both arenas but I literally made a better round 2 schedule in 10 minutes than the NHL after I looked up the dates of the concerts. The only other so called "obstacle" we had was arena football in Pittsburgh which was the night after our game 1. Otherwise Lady GaGa actually turned out to be no problem at all as she was in both arenas on days where my schedule actually had the games in opposite cities and Billy Joel who the NHL claimed needed two days to set up could have gotten his 2 days quite easily where our series could have used a 2 day rest. To add to it, I talk to a long time season ticket holding Ranger fan who knows someone in upper management at the Garden. This guy told him that they were initially told before the official schedule came out that game 3 would be played on the day game 4 was actually played which is exactly where it fell in the schedule I made. He also said that Billy Joel did not require 2 days for set up, he actually only needed 6 hours. So hmmmm. Something is "fishy" around here as Briere would say. Nonetheless, our Rangers didn't allow this to get in their heads. They overcame all of it until the end when they met a team that was also good at overcoming. A comeback team with championship pedigree who also has great coaching. Who also has a great goalie. Who also believes in each other. Who plays the game like clockwork. Oh how they get into those lanes. A team with no panic or fear. And a team with a game breaking goal scorer like Gaborik, something we now lack thanks to previous coach and Rick Nash. A team that honestly needed no help from the refs. Were they better than us? Slightly. Slightly is all they needed when you consider 3 OT games in a series that was tied or separated by one goal for 85.4% of playing time. So its a valid argument to say the slight edge they got from the refs was exactly what they needed to put them over the top.