The fine folks over at The700Level debuted this new Rangers third jersey today and I’d say that’s a pretty accurate representation of how they play the game.
The Flyers certainly didn’t play their best in a 4-1 loss this afternoon at MSG, but the officiating didn’t help. Among the worst of the worst: the refs ignore Braydon Coburn getting blatantly slashed, but then give him a five minute major when he punched Nik Antropov in the side of the head a bit later as retaliation. Was it a dumb move by Coburn? Sure…but not even close to being worth a five minute penalty. The Rangers then scored to make it 3-1 early in the third on the ensuing powerplay.
Right before that third goal Mike Richards was chasing the puck shorthanded in the Rangers zone, when one of the Ranger’s defensemen (don’t remember who it was exactly) stepped in front of Richards and started shoving him back. The puck was right behind the Rangers defenseman but he made no effort to play it…the very definition of an interference penalty. Of course it wasn’t called.
These are just a few of several blown calls that directly affected the outcome of the game. One of these days I’d like an explanation of why it seems the Flyers keep getting screwed over by all these bad calls, but incompetence generally starts at the top (Commissioner Bettman) and works its way down, so this really shouldn’t surprise anyone. Are the Flyers totally innocent? Not always, but today was a perfect example of how some days (or nights) the calls seem to go against them no matter what they do.
A Couple of Biased Broadcasters
I generally have a lot of respect for Doc Emerick, and Eddie Olcyk never annoyed me too much, but both of them did a horrible job with the NBC broadcast today. They managed to complement the Flyers a few times (mainly Mike Richards) but other than that the broadcast was primarily Rangers-centric. Last time I checked it was an accepted fact that Sean Avery is a classless piece of shit, but watching the game today and hearing Emerick stumble all over himself to complement Avery was absolutely disgusting. With some broadcasters this really wouldn’t surprise me, but I expect more out of a legend like Emrick.
