Devils continue to look for excuses for Game 3 loss
by Travis Hughes on Apr 19, 2010 5:53 PM EDT
in 2010 Playoffs
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After a game where they had eight power plays, Jacques Lemaire, Patrik Elias and the Devils are complaining about officiating. Three of those came in the first ten minutes of play, and if their team was able to put together anything resembling an attack on those advantages, it could've been a drastically different contest last night.
Instead, the Devils flat out sucked on the power play all night long -- despite having eight of them. Yes, they did score twice on Brian Rolston shots that found their way through traffic, but quite honestly, that's more luck than anything. It's tough to defend against those blasts from the point unless you lay down in front of them, and the Devils are lucky those pucks had the eyes to find their way through the traffic and into the net.
But no, the outcome of the game has nothing to do with the Devils' general inability to score on the power play. Or the Devils complete inability to get more than three shots on Brian Boucher in the third period, including a 12 minute long stretch from between the end of the third and OT where they registered ZERO shots on goal. Or the offensive incompetence of Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise on Sunday night. I mean, hell, those two didn't do ANYTHING.
But no -- it's the refs fault, because they missed a too many men call against the Flyers in overtime, apparently.
From the Devils' official Twitter feed [1, 2, and 3]:
Jacques Lemaire said today that the Flyers had too many men on the ice before David Clarkson's penalty in overtime.
Lemaire: "We were yelling, the guy was at center ice. Nobody said a word about this. That is before the winning goal."
P. Elias: "For about five, maybe 10 seconds, [Flyers] had three defensemen there. I think the whole bench tried to let the referees know."
You know, if the Devils scored one more goal in those EIGHT power play chances they had in regulation, the Flyers wouldn't even have had a chance to put too many men on the ice or whatever they allegedly did.
Hey Jacques, Patrik: here's a suggestion. Instead of complaining about the terrible officiating last night, which actually gave your team the advantage more often than not, why don't you try complaining about how shitty your team's offense was last night? Oh, because that wouldn't deflect the blame away from yourselves?
Oh, okay. Fair enough.
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Wings fans said the same thing about the Pens in the Finals last season. There’s no denying the fact that teams can dodge the bullet at times on calls like that, but I even said last year against my team that I hate to see things like that happen in the playoffs.
But whatever. You guys can do us Pens fans a favor and beat the Devils for us. Not a team the Penguins played well against at all (ya know, 0-6 for the regular season). I was happy to see the Pens didn’t put themselves in a position to play NJ in the first round. We’ll let you guys do the dirty work. ;-)
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If it’s the wrong call, there’s no doubt that it sucks no matter what. But I mean.. come on, pick your battles. If you didn’t have a million power play chances in regulation which you failed to score on, then complain. Otherwise, you have more problems than a call going against you.
BTW — I hope we play you guys again this year. Sincerely. We’ve gotta beat you eventually, right?
Broad Street Hockey - SBN's Philadelphia Flyers blog. Got goaltending? Searching since 1987.
by Travis Hughes on Apr 19, 2010 6:10 PM EDT up reply actions
I agree on all accounts…except that last one about beating us. The Devils had more than enough chances. For them to turn around and cry foul over a penalty, obvious as it may have actually been, just sounds pathetic.
Make quick work of them and get this over with. Then we’ll save the complaining for our respective media outlets.
Follow the Penguins on SBN @ Pensburgh.com and twitter.
You can only blame the officiating so much before you have to point the finger back at yourself. As Flyers fans, we know exactly what that is like. We bitch and complain about the refs but, ultimately, every time the Flyers lose it is because they so often do not do what they need to win whether that is score, play effective defense or get solid goaltending.
If the Flyers had have lost last night, we would have had issues with the officiating too. As you said Travis, the Flyers played 6 of the first 10 mins of the game on the PK and were assessed 8 penalties throughout the course of the game. But, if the Flyers had of lost, it would have been their fault. They shouldn’t be taking so many penalties and they needed to capitalize on their chances.
Honestly, I think both sides can say that last nights game was poorly officiated, but both teams had chances to capitalize. The Flyers deserve credit for playing quite well all game and the Devils need to look in the mirror and figure out what the hell happened to their offense.
(And just for the record, I certainly empathize with the Devils because you don’t want to see such an important game be shaped by a penalty call. I really am not a fan of any calls being made in the OT of a playoff game! There is just too much at stake.)
@Mitchman88 on Twitter
I think the difference with us is that we’re used to it so when it happens and we lose we see the stuff we screwed up and don’t treat the bad calls as an anomaly. That’s old hat to Philly. Need I say Winter Classic?
"Good night. Good hockey."
by KreiderDesigns on Apr 19, 2010 9:09 PM EDT up reply actions
In their defense, I was at the game and the entire section agreed we got away with a really obvious one. Then again, Claude Giroux got sent face first into the class at full speed and there was no call on what should have been a 5 minute major and maybe a misconduct… It evens out, and the bottom line is that we dominated the game, and that is why we won. Say what you want, the Devils not named Brodeur were invisible from the 3rd period on out.
by You don't have to be sweet, to be good on Apr 19, 2010 7:03 PM EDT reply actions
why do we keep pretending that everyone sucks on the power play? 2 for 8? so 25% is now terrible? or the other night when the flyers were a measely 2 for 7? 28.5% success isn’t good? did i miss something here?
Our PK was amazing, and the Devils PP couldn’t set up anything. As I said, the two goals were perimeter shots that are tough to stop once they get through. Lucky on the Devils part, to an extent, in that they found their way through traffic.
An instance of your eyes telling you more than the box score, I’d say.
Broad Street Hockey - SBN's Philadelphia Flyers blog. Got goaltending? Searching since 1987.
by Travis Hughes on Apr 20, 2010 1:08 AM EDT up reply actions
okay, that i’ll agree with. i just recall reading too much that a team only went 2 for 7 or 8 as though good teams should be scoring 50% on power plays. quality of power plays is a different story than end result, i agree
Yeah, the Devils only had 19 shots the entire game. When you have 8 power plays, you should be taking more than 19 shots for the game. They had the man advantage four times in the first period, and managed five shots. That’s pathetic, even given that Rolston scored.
On the plus side, low quality power plays from the Devils are good for us, so I won’t complain about it too much.
"When you make your final stand
I'll be right there
I'll never leave
And all I ask of you is
Believe"
Brian Rolston shots that found their way through traffic, but quite honestly, that’s more luck than anything.
That first Rolston Goal was not luck – he labeled it between a couple players opposite mid-post after faking a sprawling lappy… not that i care, but thought it relevant.
On replay, you’re right. My mistake.
Broad Street Hockey - SBN's Philadelphia Flyers blog. Got goaltending? Searching since 1987.
by Travis Hughes on Apr 20, 2010 12:13 PM EDT up reply actions
Not sure if this was already discussed. In the post game interviews, the devils coach was complaining about all the power play time. He said his guys were tired from playing on the pp for so long.
Seriously? This may be the first time I’ve ever heard anyone complain about having an advantage!
The Devils will get no such sympathy from us. While it stinks when officials miss egregious calls, it also stinks when they don’t call penalties evenly for both teams which results in one team being on the PP twice as much as the other team. /cough, cough
Nut up or shut up, Devils.
"Tortorella’s got it all wrong ... Gaborik shouldn’t be messing with our skilled player." -Peter Luuko
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