Braydon Coburn made strides to get back to his 2007-08 form this week despite a rough season so far. (Neat1325)
A nice long week at home for the Flyers began on Tuesday night with a 5-3 win over RJ Umberger and the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Flyers then came out on Thursday and shutout the Blue Shirts of New York 2-0 followed by a nice 4-2 win over the basement Carolina Hurricanes during a Saturday afternoon match-up. The entirety of the week was destroyed quickly though on Sunday afternoon, when the Pittsburgh Penguins came from behind to win the game on an extremely late powerplay 2-1.
Is anyone else sensing a pattern? Under Laviolette the Flyers have been a much more disciplined team. They’ve won their recent games by skating hard on the forecheck and staying out of the penalty box.
Still, it doesn’t matter how disciplined the Flyers are when they play the Penguins. It’s not that the officiating is one-sided or tries to screw the Flyers over in particular (We’ll leave that to FSN Pittsburgh). Conspiracy theorists, I have something to tell you that could blow your mind. Are you ready?
The reason why every time we play the Penguins there seems to be the worst officiating in NHL history is simple. The NHL makes money when the Penguins play a tight, high-scoring game regardless of the team they play. We’re talking Yankee money. That ugly little Penguin logo has become easily one of the most recognizable logos in professional sports, which is sad since it’s based on a franchise with a terrible history of money mismanagement, tanking seasons (which is not purposely losing, but instead not spending money needed to win), and exploiting stars to their breaking points. Why would the NHL make money off of it? The big names make money, and the more big names Pittsburgh has, the more revenue they produce for the NHL.
There’s a reason the Penguins are on three straight NBC Sunday games starting with us yesterday. They have one against Detroit and another against Washington in the coming weeks.
Anyway, back to my point. It’s not that the refs are trying to cheat and let the Penguins win, but they certainly aren’t in it to do the Flyers any favors. Or even the Penguins for that matter. Close, high-scoring hockey games make the NHL go ’round, and unfortunately for Bettman, the defense wasn’t co-operating yesterday.
The defensive abilities displayed by both teams, especially Chris Pronger, were nothing short of spectacular. It was another great game, that the refs just happened to ruin.
There is however a reason why the Penguins have the most powerplay opportunities in the NHL once again. In between tons of missed calls on Sunday, there were plenty of interesting ones made at inopportune times for either team to pull away. The Flyers were easily hurt the most by this when a headshot by Malkin on Gagne in the corner led to a Flyers’ goal being pulled and an early 2-0 lead being negated. Gagne of course got the extra high-sticking penalty when there was no high-sticking to be found on the replays. A minute later, on the powerplay, the Penguins tie the game.
Ever wonder why year in and year out of the Sidney Crosby era of Penguins hockey they are easily the most resilient team? I’d have to double check the stats, but they have always had more victories than the majority of teams after falling behind by a goal than any other NHL team I’ve seen. That has nothing to do with skill. No matter how “clutch” you are, you can’t win every game after trailing early.
Laviolette had some words about the game as well:
Reporter: “That goal taken away from you at the beginning was a pretty big momentum swing, but on the other hand you still had nine powerplays against this team. Do you think it does balance out, or is that just something you can’t recover from?”
Laviolette: “I think they had eight powerplays. I mean the powerplays seem to balance out. I don’t know how a two-goal swing balances out against opportunities on the powerplay. It was 2-0. It turns around, it immediately goes down, and it’s 1-1. I don’t get the balance there.”
Reporter: “Were you frustrated with some of those calls there in the first period and maybe the inconsistencies as well?”
Laviolette: “I guess I’m frustrated because for the last month and a half we’ve been preaching discipline, preaching staying out of the box, and our players have bought into that. We’ll kill the ones that we have to take, but going back and looking at that game there’s just too many penalties that didn’t happen. They didn’t happen. On that play in particular [the disallowed goal in the first period], Simon Gagne did not highstick anybody. So it turns around and goes back the other way. Scott Hartnell did not, in my opinion did not, interfere with the goaltender. I don’t know if it’s a reputation from the past. We want to play tough. We want to play physical, but we don’t need to go to the box. Our players are still going there, and our players aren’t taking penalties. So I can’t quite figure it out.”
Reporter: “Is that delay of game penalty one of those ones that you’re talking about, that you just have to take?”
Laviolette: “That’s one of the ones [that you just have to take]. It happened. Now listen, I’m not here to get after anybody. It happened. It was an accident. It went out of the rink. You wish it didn’t, but it did. We’ll kill it. Those are the ones we have to kill.”
I do have to point out that the NBC broadcast was particularly terrible yesterday. Then again, say the name Crosby on air, and ratings will go up. Ratings equal money.
Welcome to Philadelphia, Coach Laviolette.
