Phigment

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United States, VA • United States •

Flyers vs Caps

What a bunch of crap the call was in the Flyers vs Caps game last night. The game was 1-1 in the first period with the Flyers playing very tentative with the new coach behind the bench. Carcillo was clearly charged and dodged the hit – he retaliated with a cross-check –high stick move; which was dumb as most moves Carcillo makes during a hockey game! So as Bradley pushes back, the two both drop their gloves and Carcillo knocks Bradley out with 1 punch. Don’t believe my account described here – watch it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qws7Hp0WDRc .

Somehow the penalties on the play were 2 for high sticking, 2 for instigation, 5 for fighting, 10 minute misconduct, and game misconduct for Carcillo. Bradley got nothing. That’s right nothing. So this equates to a 9 minute powerplay for the Caps. That’s right, 9 minutes. I have no idea how Bradley got zero minutes. My read on the play should have been 5 each for fighting, 2 extra for Carcillo for high stick. That is a big difference and it looks like the referee watching the play in the video, saw the entire play and still blew the call. Then neither referee would even explain what they saw to the Flyers. I still agree with Timonen last year that said in an interview that the referees do not treat the Flyers with respect. http://www.philly.com/phi...lyersreport/43211377.html I believe that Timonen, who was a captain for many years in Nashville, but gets treated differently in a Philly uniform.

After the penalty was over, so was the confidence on the Flyers bench and the game was over as well. For the fans, the highlight the rest of the night occurred when the referee that made the awful call was struck with the puck in the side of his head. Great, now announcers can say that the Philly crowd cheered the referee getting hurt. Never mind the fact that this is the guy that cost them all roughly $75 per person to watch a totally uncompetitive game. Maybe that was just karma catching up with the zebra. I hope he isn’t hurt.

Now for what I saw from the Flyers is the same kind of play that they had under Stevens. The players do not support each other when they have the puck. They are playing NBA style offense. The player gets the puck around their own blue line, skates into the offense and looks for a dunk at the net or a 3 point shot from outside. No puck possession at all, because the players are a rink width away or 3 zones away from the defense looking for the home run pass. Fast teams in the NHL do not skate faster than other teams, they move the puck with a number of short passes and the puck moves faster than any player can skate. When the puck is on the right wing, the furthest away the forward should be away is the center of the rink – not on the left wing. When the defense has the puck behind our net, the forwards should not be at center ice! I read that Laviolette started working on this very topic today at practice.

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