Habs Lose to Rags Ending Their Losing Streak

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Couple things...

1 - The PK was miserable today. Like seriously some of the worst stuff I've ever seen. Why you pair Matheson and Savard on the PK (let in 2) is beyond me. At least Savard can block shots but boy do they do a whole lot of standing around. Headscratcher to me.
2 - Dach...I thought he used his body more effectively today but...he just doesn't generate anything. Doesn't really win board battles, doesn't shoot (or when he does it's not to the net). And that penalty at the end of the third....I don't even understand what he was trying to do. It's not like Mikka had the puck, why the f*** would you smack him right in the face with your stick man??? When the camera zoomed in on him in the box, you could tell he was insta-regretting the f*** up. And what do you know? Rangers score their THIRD power play goal of the game. The only good player on the ice during that PK was Evans. Everyone else sucked.

I did think the Habs battled hard, but the endless parade to the penalty box really punished them there. Rangers were pretty dead after the 3rd goal and the come back was really sweet (especially the tying goal). Extremely sour end of the game there.

If i were Marty, I'd send Dach in the press box for a couple of games. He needs to reflect on his play. And if he asks for a trade? I wouldn't miss him.
 
Was at the game yesterday. I had a great time! The Rangers fans next to us were very nice and we chatted all game long. Habs played great, better than I expected. All I wanted was a competitive game and that's what we got. It was really apparent at times that the Rangers players were much bigger than some Habs players but our team kept working despite this. Kudos to the players.

It was really annoying to see Kreider left alone in front of the goalie on the PP. This should never ever happen.

Hutson is magic.
 
Anderson did real well in that fight. He was fine doing it the way he did.
Missed the game guys..................was very glad to see that Andy took Trouba to the trash can!!
Can't be The Sherriff all the time.....

Sounds like the refs were the 1st star, too bad.
The boys played well by the sounds of it......they will be hungry today vs The Bruins.....
 
Was at the game yesterday. I had a great time! The Rangers fans next to us were very nice and we chatted all game long. Habs played great, better than I expected. All I wanted was a competitive game and that's what we got. It was really apparent at times that the Rangers players were much bigger than some Habs players but our team kept working despite this. Kudos to the players.

It was really annoying to see Kreider left alone in front of the goalie on the PP. This should never ever happen.

Hutson is magic.
New York is an awesome city. I hope you have time to really check it out.
 
Missed the game guys..................was very glad to see that Andy took Trouba to the trash can!!
Can't be The Sherriff all the time.....

Sounds like the refs were the 1st star, too bad.
The boys played well by the sounds of it......they will be hungry today vs The Bruins.....
Anderson clearly won his scrap. The team showed a lot of fire yesterday. Refs hosed us on a couple of calls and that hurt. Dach’s high stick was just one of those things. Brutal way to lose.
 
Only thing better was the very next pass by Hutson right after lol

But I'm honestly VERY pleased with Caufield this year, to me He's been our best player even above Suzuki
Said it before and I’ll say it again, last year should’ve been a career year.
 
For a guy who is an habitual headhunter/ cheap shot artist, Trouba does a poor job of fending off Anderson’s flying fists. This was oddly satisfying:


Yeah Trouba at BEST is pretty borderline. Satisfying indeed. If Anderson can keep this stuff up, I’d keep him no questions asked.
 
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I almost never talk about the reffing, but.... holy crap... that was horrific. The refs gifted the Rags power plays and, ultimately, handed them the game.

Good to see the kids coming back. They should have won. Hopefully the terrible calls will light a fire under them.
It's not just that the reffing pretty much continually fails to favor the habs, it's the inconsistency and lack of control.

You are never going to get completely even reffing, especially with the brain trust in Toronto with their weird narratives, but most of the changes so far have been negative. There are a bunch of problems:
  • They added a ref, so instead of one guy imposing his personal style you have two guys doing whatever.
  • The ref further from the play makes a lot of calls on things he pretty obviously didn't see well while the other ref saw and let them go.
  • Refs are way more concerned with getting respect and not being questioned than in doing their jobs properly.
  • Some visibly bad refs, Chris Lee for example, continue to get games long term, even when it visibly affects play to the point of making games very different.
  • Refs very much adjust their calls to a bunch of things outside of the game. Vindictive owners, players they like, players they don't like, coaches they like or don't like, vets vs rookies...
  • Calls change throughout the season depending on what refs are supposed to focus on, and change completely in the playoffs.
  • Refs concentrate on "making things fair" by calling the same number of penalties on both teams as opposed to calling the game by the rules. There are calls they have to make, but it's often an advantage for a physical team to overdo it because, as the game goes on, the ref will try to avoid calling yet another penalty on them while they try really hard to find penalties on the other team to "even things up."
Many of these things are ingrained in the game and Toronto narratives, with assistance from Bettman who doesn't care much as long as the Florida teams get the benefit of the doubt.

It sucks watching games involving neutral teams because you can just see how it will play out. A more physical team takes penalties early when everyone is fresh on the PK and there is lots of time, and then gets phantom balancing calls in the third period while committing obvious, but uncalled, fouls and benefiting from power plays at key times when players are tired. It's worse in the playoffs, too.

Taking the absolute best view, assuming the refs are totally honest and unbiased, the officiating is subjective and uneven. The worst view is that calls are changed in response to gambling odds and fan base size.

Reffing is a hard, thankless job, but most other sports generally manage to get better officials. I guess the CFL doesn't do any better, so maybe it's a Canadian thing.
 
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I almost never talk about the reffing, but.... holy crap... that was horrific. The refs gifted the Rags power plays and, ultimately, handed them the game.

Good to see the kids coming back. They should have won. Hopefully the terrible calls will light a fire under them.

I almost never blame the refs but this game was so poorly officiated and we lost a game that I thought we deserved to win solely due to atrocious calls that led directly to goals against. The call on Anderson and the additional two on Dach were inexcusable
 

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