Habs Lose A Thriller To Flames
by Robert L on Nov 11, 2009 6:25 AM EST
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Life's gotten in the way, so I'll just have a quick few thoughts on the 1-0 loss to Calgary last night as I was only able to catch maybe half the game up till this point.
From what I saw it was a heck of game. Fast, lots of hitting, the obligatory fights, players standing up, killer scoring chances and great goaltending. In a wrap, everything a Habs / Flames game always is.
In all that, it's too bad the refs didn't show up.
It's not like it would have made a difference in the score, as the Habs PP bites it these days, but there could have been some serious injuries.
Tomas Plekanec looked to be really primed for this game, and it became obvious after awhile that the Flames were targeting him some, but how Phaneuf and McGratton don't get called for their fouls on Plekanec is beyond me.
On the first, you have a player racing for a puck near the end board who is upended and crashes dangerously to the ice. The spot where the end board meets the playing surface is an unforgiving area in terms of impact. Pleks was lucky he fell the way he did. It could have been much worse.
The argument for not calling it might suggest that Plekanec was off balance, but that's a crock. A skating stride is the same as a walking pace, where you can only have the weight on one foot or leg at once. Plekenac was moving - again, without the puck - and in a vulnerable position. It's not like he was braced for the shove or could have protected himself. He was racing for the puck.
In the incident with McGratton, Plekanec was striding toward the Flames blueline without the puck when hit. It was a cross ice blind spot hit similar to that of which the Flyers Mike Richards administered on David Booth.
NHL officiating is very ill.
The Phaneuf hit is at 2:10 in the highlight clip below.
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An Excursion into RetroLand.
When I stepped off the ship Empress of Australia in Montreal in 1953 as a nine-year-old immigrant from England, I knew nothing about the NHL. All I knew about ice hockey was from a fictional story in one of the boys’ annuals that were common gifts for English boys at Christmastime. The Champion Annual for Boys 1952—which I have before me as I write—carried a story titled “Goal-Getter Charlie—the Skating Streak,” about one Charlie Groves of the Lone River Bobcats. (Some day I might type out the whole story and post it just for laughs.) The annual’s cover was a colour drawing of Goal-Getter Charlie; he wore a red and green uniform that strongly resembled the one worn last night by the Canadiens. That retro uniform was what brought Goal-Getter Charlie to mind, and I was hoping its invocation in my memory might somehow mean someone on the Canadiens would step forward as goal-getter on the Canadiens. But it was not to be; not even a single goal was forthcoming. So much for for such superstitious, romantic nonsense.
Speaking of which, let us now stop this ridiculous invocation of the past that has our team wearing ugly uniforms in actual games. Enough of retro uniforms. Sell them if you want, but stop wearing them in games. They actually hurt our performance; they hinder the instant recognition of teammates that comes from familiarity with the uniforms we regularly wear. And, if I might stoop into superstitious, romantic nonsense once again, they’re bad luck!
Big Hits
On the topic of big hits, I saw this last night and thought everyone would like to read it.
Sorry if its a link to yahoo sports :/
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