I say keep Bertuzzi out and go with what you had the first two games… that teamed showed up and won the games without a problem.

I’m not saying the Wings didn’t have a chance to win in spite of those calls. They did. I wrote above that the final responsibility for their loss was in their hands. Still, I felt like the officiating played far too big a role in the game. I’m with Sarah, I feel like I was denied the ability to watch two great teams because of all the stuff that was missed and because of the calls that were bad.

Not with every game is the officiating so instrumental. If the Flames had not scored on those power plays or that rush following the missed interference call, you could compare the game to any generic one. But they did score and that makes those calls significant. Again, the Wings could have overcome that stuff, but the officials shouldn’t put them in that kind of position, whether they’re playing in Calgary or not.

Yes, they definitely picked up the alarm. And they picked up the crowd being loud at times. It just didn’t seem to be so loud the whole game.

and also, I was the game last night, at Rexall last year and the Dome in 04, and it was easily as loud last night as those events, but clearly the tv michs didn’t pick it up (although they did apparently pick up the fire alarm.)

If it’s an effort in futility, why blog at all? My job as a blogger is to look at these things. I assume it’s the same for you.

During the game, I commented that the officiating was bad overall and I admitted they were probably missing things on the Wings too. I have no doubt that it went both ways. However, you’re extra sensitive to what infractions the Wings commit and I’m extra sensitive to what the Flames do. We both miss what our team does. The truth is somewhere in between.

That’s not the point, though. The point is the Wings got jobbed on two penalties and one major interference call was missed. Even if you think their penalties were deserved, I would hope you’d be honest enough to admit that Zetterberg was interfered with. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Flames were slapped with any particularly bad phantom calls last night, nor did a blown call by the officials result directly in a Detroit goal. Even if only the interference by Primeau on Zetterberg was called, I wouldn’t be talking so much about the officiating.

Shv,

Perhaps the arena mics just didn’t pick everything up. Still, it wasn’t as loud as Rexall, which you could hear nearly drowning out the TV announcers last spring.

Besides the officiating, we certainly were not perfect in all areas. Lang still isn’t doing anything (unless you count losing faceoffs). Babs made some questionable decisions, the worst of which was putting Lang out for that final faceoff. He has had the worst faceoff percentage of the entire team for the last two games at least. I’m assuming (because I don’t think Babcock is a complete idiot) that this was some failed attempt at motivating Lang. I personally don’t know why he didn’t just go with his original plan of putting Bert on his line. Sounds like he’s planning on doing that tomorrow though so I guess we’ll see if it works.

Zetterberg seemed like he was a step behind all night. He and Pavel were definitely not in sync as they usually are. Here’s hoping it was just a case of jet-lag and he’ll be back on track tomorrow.

I think Dom had a good performance overall, but never should have given up that Iginla goal. I don’t know what was going on there.

At any rate, it greatly comforts me that this was a one goal loss and not a blowout. I am confident the Wings will come out strong tomorrow and pull out a win at the Saddledome.