The NHL Playoffs so far

There are a number of interesting developments in the playoffs so far, and a few surprises....Lets review each of these one by one. I think all in all the playoffs have offered some of the best action in years but there are certainly areas where the league needs to improve.

Mysteries of the protectors of the Twine

Its interesting to see how the importance of goaltending seems mildly diminished and yet is still so crucial...For example if you look around at the different matchups there are a number of teams who have suffered because their starting goaltending has faltered, or their backups have been spectacular, or the regular has lived up to his reputation.

For example the best contrast is that of Jose Theodore and John Graham, both players who have marginal (at best) regular seasons, yet both are in starkly different situations at this time. Jose's Avalanche are up in their series with Dallas 3-1 whereas Grahame and the Bolts are down 3-1. Statistically other than in the win column there numbers are fairly similar.

Grahame ------Save Pct: .847 - GAA : 4.79 - Shots faced : 98
Theodore ------Save Pct: .883 - GAA : 2.95 - Shots faced : 103

Neither have been spectacular but one is on his way out of the playoffs and the other is cruising towards the second round.

Also are there any doubts that Peter Laviolette made the right choice when he switched to Cam Ward over Martin Gerber. Just to illustrate how clutch Ward has been for Carolina he has rescued them from 2-0 series deficit and has sparkled with a .921 save percentage nearly 200 points higher than starter Gerber's .735. The high flying Habs have been stoned in consecutive games and are certainly now worried that the series they were in control of might be slipping away.

Officiating of the Games

There are things that simply escape explanation and the refereeing in the playoffs has been fantastic but you have to wonder how angry Montreal fans after ending up on the wrong end of a lot of calls in their series...Which is dead even but could easily be 3-1 or even over by now. Just to review here are some of the reasons Montreal fans are frustrated right now.

1. When Cullen scored the opening goal of the series Sheldon Souray was a tad impeded by one of the officials.
2. Dennis LaRue missed a high stick in Koivu's eye in game 3 that was uncalled. How when you are perfectly positioned do you miss that I don't know. In addition that game LaRue called at most 1 or 2 penalties while his colleague Dan Marouelli was forced into making most of the calls.
3. Again in game 2 Marouelli called a tripping penalty when Plekanec simply had position of Josef Vasicek who ran out of room and tripped on the side of the net.
4. Game 3 Don Van Massenhoven and Tim Peel called off a goal when Brind'Amour clearly shoved Huet out of the way before putting the puck in the net but then didn't call a penalty. How can a goal be disallowed due to goalie interference but no penalty be called?
5. Overall Habs fans are mostly disgusted with the refs unwillingness to protect their goaltender who is constantly being slashed, crashed into, and bumped at every opportunity by the Canes, no better example than Niclas Wallin crashing into Huet on the winning goal of game 4. Its been occurring all series long and the refs have not called it once.

Montreal fans will be right to criticize the officiating should these trends continue and Montreal be eliminated. Its almost enough to make the Montreal fans long for Kerry Fraser.

I have however watched most of the other games and refereeing seems for the most part to be well done and fairly even, there have been a large number of penalties called in every series and Montreal is certainly not the only victim of bad calls. It will be interesting to see how the games will be called in the following rounds because at times games have degraded into special teams contests. The good news in the second round is that the officials that have poorly performed will not be required for duty.

All in all its great to have playoff hockey back!!!