Slept on it, and No I Don’t Feel Better

Most of you probably saw the Avalanche take on the Penguins in the “Igloo” last night.  If you did, then you were probably as frustrated angry completely & jaw-droppingly dumbfounded as I was to hear the early whistle by referee Justin St. Pierre on what should have been T.J. Galiardi’s second goal of the night with 11:46 left in the 2nd period.  This play can be seen at about the 2:05 mark of the highlight video that I posted.  Now, I would never want to blame the officiating for a loss because there is always the argument that the team should have capitalized on the other chances they had.  I totally get that, and the Avalanche did have a lot of missed scoring opportunities.  Also, if the game was a blowout by the Penguins, then the call would have not made that much of a difference, and it would not be as big of a deal.  Having said that (gotta love the Curb Your Enthusiasm reference), this bad stoppage is a direct reason that the Avalanche did not get at least one point last night.  The score of the game was 2-1 late in the 3rd period before Joe Sacco decided to pull Budaj for not one, but two empty net goals.  My fantasy team loves the free Crosby stats, but the Avalanche fan in me does not understand the second free goal.  The point is that this game should have gone into overtime, and the Avalanche was completely robbed of that opportunity by one single early whistle.  It is very disappointing after Budaj did a great job in net; and in general, because the team played very hard considering the travel and having to play two nights in a row.  There are a few things that would make me feel better though.

1.  Referee suspension needs to be immediate, and made public.  We always hear about players getting a game suspension here or there for rough hits or other dirty plays.  It is time for NHL referees to be held publicly accountable for their blatant mistakes like this one.  I want to read in the NHL news wire that the league has suspended Justin St. Pierre two games for a blown call.  I know this sounds drastic, but so is losing a point in a league where every single point counts.  Overall, I think NHL referees are some of the best in all of professional sports.  Do we really want to start looking like MLB umps with completely obvious blown (or wrong) calls without any ramification? The NHL owning and acknowledging the mistake is important to me.

2.  Eliminate the, “Meant to blow the whistle” clause in the rules.  It is completely vague, and something so subjective should not be in the rule books.  If anything, the subjective nature of the calls should side in favor of the goal being scored as long as the whistle did not effect the play itself.  If a whistle causes players to stop their action (basically stand around) before a goal is scored, then a goal should be disallowed.  Everyone and their mother (hell…even M.A. Fleury’s mom) know that Galiardi should have been awarded a goal on that play.

3.  Institute a mandatory “3 Mississippi” count before a referee can blow the whistle after losing sight of a puck.  I actually do not care if said zebra does not like Mississippi.  Have them use “Alligator” or any other 4 syllable word of their desire to make them resist the urge to stop a play so quickly.  If you really want to get fancy, make them sideways karate chop the air 3 times like basketball refs have to do when a point guard is taking his sweet time getting to the other side of center court.

Okay, I feel a little better.  I want to reiterate that I realize the Avalanche should have taken care of business with the other opportunities that they had to score.  It is just disappointing to see one bad call have that much impact on the actual outcome of a game. The main point that should be taken out of this is that the rule is plain and simply flawed.  A league that is criticized as much as the NHL is for not having enough scoring, should not have rules in the books that take away the legitimate scoring that does happen.

The Avs give it another shot tomorrow night against the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets.  The Avalanche played well last night, and they should be able to get the 2 points with a similar effort.  The game will start shortly after 5pm mtn.

Also, please check out the Jay Vean’s new site and latest podcast at www.TheAvsHockeyPodcast.com.