My Thoughts on the Playoffs so far

Well, if you have been reading my blog you know what gets on my nerves more than anything, inconsistent officiating and poor calls from the Toronto office.

However I have decided to give my views on what I have seen in the playoffs so far.

1. "Hi, Ottawa and Vancouver, this is the NHL, we are going to screw over as best we can because we don't care about the teams in Canada.". This can't be made any more apparent then in the two disallowed goals that have happened to both teams. Even though I think Ron MacLean is a complete moron at points, during the 1st OT intermission between Ottawa and Pittsburgh (If you missed the game, Foligno had a puck go in off his skate in overtime, no kicking motion), Ron MacLean showed some of the goals of skates that were allowed. The two highlights that CBC showed were one of Daniel Alfredsson having one off his skate and into the net, very similar to the Nick Foligno OT winner that was said to be a good goal, and one of Kyle Wellwood that was similar to the Daniel Sedin no goal that was on there and considered a good goal on the DVD. Which only leads more fuel to the fire that Canadian teams are getting screwed over.

2. Officiating overall. The inconsistency in all the series is making me think that all NHL officials should be drug tested, or have their eye sight tested because there has been some calls that make me go hmmm. The best evidence of this come from the Pittsburgh-Ottawa series in which Mike Fisher, near the Penguins net, is shoving a little bit with Penguins d-man Brooks Orpik. Marc Andre Fleury cross checks Fisher from behind, Fisher not expecting to be nailed from behind has his visor go into Orpik's face cutting him open. Fleury gets two for cross checking and Fisher gets a double minor for high sticking. Here is the incident. The event happens at 9:13 of the video.



3. Big name goalie = no guarantee. Martin Brodeur is gone in 5 games (Woohoo), Ryan Miller is on the brink of elimination, Luongo has looked ordinary, Halak drew the short end of the stick vs Washington, Bryzgalov has been beaten a lot by Detroit. The only goalies who seem to be having a decent playoff so far are Nabakov (even with Boyle scoring on him in OT), Tuukka Rask (Who actually had solid numbers in the regular season), and Craig Anderson (The only reason the Av's are still in their series).

4. The amount of Dan Boyle jokes going around. Yes, I have seen the goal and I still find it hard to believe, the real funny thing on this was Steve Smith was in the building (Sorry Oilers fans, I had to go there). Here are some of my favorites:

1. The domination of this game made Boyle relapse to the Olympics and thought he was suppose to shoot on Nabakov.

2. Boyle was getting back at Nabakov for hiding his gold medal.

3. Always hating being left out as to one of the reasons the Sharks playoffs flops.

This could go on forever but I'll stop there.

5.The amount of parodies being done of the Stanley Cup Playoffs commercials from other playoff moments. Whether they be of this years playoffs (The Canucks no goal inspired "What if the NHL wasn't ran by a bunch of high school dropouts?") or the infamous Kerry Fraser blown call in 1993 "What if Kerry Fraser wasn't blind?". These are all done pretty well and just show the NHL how easy they are to mock, which is something no company should ever want to be.

Here is the Kerry Fraser one made by Bloge Salming and Down Goes Brown



Here is the Canucks no goal one:



Those are all the major ones I can think of now, I will be back soon to give my thoughts on the second round.