OK … refs sucked. Shocking, I know. Also, apparently we’re all bagging on Maniscalco for some reason. These are not my takeaways because neither of those things could be called surprising. Yeah, Sutherland found a new way to screw up, so I guess that’s kind of noteworthy. He’s now apparently deciding what penalty to award based on how much power play time he feels is “fair” … and I don’t care who you’re rooting for, that crap can’t be allowed to continue. This is now the 2nd or 3rd time in these playoffs that our brilliant refs have seen spearing and decided to call it something different because they don’t like that spearing is a major. That’s just … words fail. The NHL just continues to step on rakes.
The game … not that shocking to see Carolina remember how to defend that breakout play. Mostly because it’s just a breakout play, not freaking witchcraft. They also gapped up much better and handled switches in the D zone much better. Slavin went from a game score of minus 4.5 to plus 4.5, which again isn’t really all that surprising. So, nothing really unexpected last night. Montreal is like gum on your shoe and they refuse to buckle under, so Carolina’s failure to extend that lead almost bit them in the ass, but honestly that’s pretty standard stuff as well.
Even up through 2, so Montreal had the road trip they wanted. Go to Montreal, get the split there and we’re right back where we started … plus the enemies that individual players have picked up along the way. And somebody tell Texier that if he’s gonna pull that crap in that building, he needs to be rocking a gold double breasted suit in the post game. Oh, and his brother should factor in despite not being in the game. If you’re gonna do a Chris Paul, you have to go all the way.