On the Wings

I did catch the game last night, but didn’t take notes so I won’t be doing a full summary. I just have a few comments.

The title of this post refers to a play that took place at 3:13 of the first period. On this play, Mathieu Schneider scored a goal from the left wing after manuevering around the Sharks defense. It was a great goal but it was called back. Do you know why? You can probably guess, since it’s happened twice before this season. The referee immediately waived the goal off because Tomas Holmstrom was ruled to be in the crease.

Okay. Maybe he was. Let’s watch the replay: no, he’s not in the paint now … or now … or now … there’s the puck going in … and he’s still not in the crease.

Hmm. Maybe it was contact with the goaltender. Let’s watch again: there’s Toskala at the top of the crease with his glove hand on Homer’s back … he’s practically out of the crease … now he’s backed up and Homer’s near the edge … they’re not touching at all … there’s the puck again. Going into the net. A goal. Right? Wrong.

I swore that if the Wings lost by a goal, I’d be pissed. Well, they did and I am. The other times this season the Wings have been denied a goal due to contact or presence in the paint, I thought they were BS calls but I could see why the official called it that way. Last night, however, there is no way that goal should have been called back. Absolutely no way.

The League needs to clarify the rule. When I, as a long time fan, have no idea why a goal was called back, there’s a problem. They also need to fix the replay policy. There is no way it’s okay for a goal to be overturned like that and if they reviewed every goal and the booth had the power to counter the verdict on the ice, you wouldn’t have actual goals being taken away. It probably wouldn’t be a perfect system but it’d sure as heck be better than what we have now.

I’d hate for something like that to happen when the games actually mean something.

Anyway, as nice as it would have been to have had that goal, I don’t think I can really say that they lost only because they didn’t have it. Frankly, the Wings did not play that well last night. The defense was no where nearly as tight as it has been and the Sharks had Joey MacDonald making some very, very good saves for much of the game. They gave up 35 shots, the most they’ve allowed all season, 19 of which came in the third period.

Dan Cleary’s turnover at the end of the game was tragic, but was just one example of the many times the Wings turned over the puck during the game last night. Once again, they hung MacDonald out to dry defensively and it’s only because he played so well last night that the game was even close. Even if that goal had not been turned over and the Wings had won, it’d have been due to Joey’s play.

One thing that did look better was the power play, which got one goal. I’m glad but they can’t forget to play well defensively as well.

They get a little bit of a reprieve on Tuesday with the Blues. Let’s hope they can spoil Brett Hull’s Retirement Night.