Bettman ruins another game

I did think the Ovechkin hit was a penalty, one of the few penalties that they called that I agreed with. I felt that Gonchar helped cause the injury by veering so hard to miss Ovechkin, but then I thought I detected Ovechkin swerving just a little to the inside to make the contact. A two minute trip was the right call in my book. The real penalty was that it looked like Ovechkin watched the replays of Gonchar doing the caterpillar on the ice, and it rattled him. He was not the same the rest of the night.

Once again, like the Dux the other night, as soon as the Caps got ahead, it seemed like the refs did a lot to make sure the Pens got every chance to get back in it, which, of course, they did. I think the reffing was a direct cause of the Ovechkin hit -- he was out there, yes headhunting you can call it -- but it was clear he was frustrated with the officiating.

There were so many ridiculous calls, I can't even recount them. The first penalty -- a cross check vs Clark, was a joke. Clark bumps into Talbot from behind, and Talbot goes down like he was hit by a train. Should not have been a penalty, and should have been a dive. Pens of course score to tie game. Later on, there was another egregious call on Fedorov on what was a nice clean back check.

Meanwhile they missed tons of other calls, as if realizing that they had expended their quota on ticky-tack BS calls, suddenly they couldn't call anything, lest even the impotent Commissioner's office think perhaps they had too much effect on the game.

Re: the many late hits that are occurring, it seems the policy of the NHL is you can hit the guy late, as long as you don't hit him hard. I can't tell you how many times I see a defender clear a puck coming out of his zone, and he gets hit by the forechecker 3, 4 and sometimes 5 strides later. Never a call. Meanwhile, if you hit late, say 1/2 a stride late, but draw blood or cause a spectacular fall, you draw a whistle. Same goes for play in the crease -- you can cross check as long as you don't knock the guy down.

Versus reported that the crew that worked the Pens game last night is the same crew that drew the wrath of the Dux for their Red Wings-slanted calls the previous game. So it's clear these are Bettman's dirty workers -- let's hope they miss their next flight so we can get an enjoyable game.