Actually, I tend to think the Bill McCreary is rather fair, with perhaps a bit of bias in favour of Canadian teams. Most of the refs I don’t have any opinion of, but confirmation bias creeps in with Lee and Auger. Or, rather, stomps in and tracks mud all over the place; they are terrible. If the other refs were just as bad, I’d probably have an opinion of them too, right? (I am very critical of the refs in every game).
I think it would be interesting to see what fans’ impressions of refs in each market are. Not that I think the NHL would do anything about it even with hard evidence of bias or incompetence; cough coughthey still have Colin Campbell on staffcough
The NHL has a lot of referees; a particular ref’s performance with a particular team is just not a large enough data sample to conclude he’s biased, especially when one considers that a ref may be more prone to making particular calls that favour a team’s style. For instance, Ref A might be quicker on the whistle on interference calls than Ref B, while Ref B is quicker to call roughing. A team that’s more prone to holding in the defensive end will therefore do worse with ref A, while the Flyers will do worse with Ref B.
This isn’t to say I think the referreeing is fantastic, but I will say two things:
It’s better than it used to be, like 10-12 years ago when the rulebook was, for all practical purposes, being totally ignored, and
If there’s a problem with the refs then quite frankly it’s a problem with the LEAGUE, not the individual refs.
Did the Devils and Capitals change uniforms before the game last night, or something?
What the heck is wrong with Washington? As much as I’d love it if I could say my Devils deserved the win and are finally turning the corner toward being a respectable team again… it’s hard not to give almost all the credit to how poorly the Caps played: half-hearted forecheck (4 shots in the first period?!), miserable PP, an invisible Ovechkin and a defense made of swiss cheese. Really lazy, uninspired swiss cheese.
Alex Auld is in goals tonight, entering the game with a stellar 100% win percentage having allowed only one goal this season as a Canadien!
yeah, yeah, so it’s only his second game…at least he’s played well so far!
I was hoping he’d get another start soon. Not because Price isn’t playing well, but just to give him a bit of a rest, especially since the Philly fiasco the other night. I’m not sure if I want Price playing much more than 60 games this season.
The Stars and Blues are playing back to back games this weekend. I wish the NHL did this more often. I remember there were quite a few back to back series in the late 90’s up to the lockout.
Well, the Stars’ thrilling new center has 10 goals and 19 assists in his first 22 games. His defensive positioning is chancy, but you’ve got to think that will come around, and with that kind of offense…
… oh, wait, no, that’s me playing “NHL 10” on my PlayStation.
Unfortunately, the awful Senators make my PlayStation season more interesting than the real one.
Maybe they have a winning treak in them but this is a really bad team.
Only two teams in the Eastern Conference have a worse goal differential than Ottawa. It’s a pretty good estimate of their real level of ability that it lies somewhere between where they are (10th) and where their goal differential suggests they should be. Their record is probably two or three points lucky, if anything.
And I hear you about drafting, but, still, Redden over Chara. Ouch. $10 million for Alex Kovalev. Double ouch. I can’t remember the last time Ottawa actually made a really sharp trade.
For the last years, streaks just seem to be what this team does.
We had a terrible goal differential last season and still had a great season. Not sure if that’s indicative that this team bucks the goal differential trend or is just lucky. Probably more the latter,
A terrible decision. It would have been disastrous had Phillips and Volechenkov stepped up big time to pick up the slack defensively. Thank God Redden insisted on a short-term contract.
This one, I think, is overstated. At the time we signed Kovalev, there was nothing better we could do for $5 million that season. Maybe the extra cap space would have helped us this season, maybe not, who knows. I suppose that we might have been able to get a piece of the action from Chicago – but that might have meant Byfuglien, or it might have meant Versteeg.
Maybe picking up Comrie in 2007, but he ended up being hurt for much of the cup run so who knows. If not that, I think that you have to go back to Heatley for Hossa and DeVries. You can definitely make the argument that was a lateral move, though, in which case the next candidate that I can remember becomes Yashin for Spezza(well, the second overall pick), Chara and Bill Muckalt in 2001. :eek:
Oh, I suppose that we dumped Meszaros at the right time, but I really would have held out for Tampa’s #1 instead of Picard or even Kuba.
3?
Habs win one, lose one, win one, lose one…both in spectacular fashion. Either all four lines are rolling or all four forget to even show up. Last night was downright embarrassing. Is there a precedent for sending your entire top 6 tot he press box and calling up the farm team? I mean, if they don’t want to work, it’s not like there aren’t others who are at least willing to try and do their jobs for them, you know?
I hope they hammer the Sabres tonight but then can sort out whatever the fuck their problem is this week and try and win two in a row!
ETA: And I want Chris Pronger to suffer a freak dual-testicle-removing injury. His condescending sexist “he said, she said…and I’m the he” implication that you can’t trust women and they are all liars was one of the most offensive things I’ve heard recently, and I hope the NHL fines or otherwise condemns such comments.
I’m watching the Devils/Flyers 1 PM Eastern game. I think there should be more afternoon games. Here in Phoenix, the main drawback about going to see the Coyotes is the far west location of the arena. If they scheduled some 1 PM faceoffs, then I could leave here early, grab my coffee, go to the game, and still have my Saturday night free.
