Wideman Critiques are Wide Right
For the last few months of the season, much has been made about the valuable “games in hand” the Bruins had over the other teams competing for playoff spots in the Eastern Conference. For whatever scheduling reason, the B’s had played less games than the Canadiens, Flyers, Rangers and Thrashers heading into last week. Those extra games were the trump card the Bruins could play if they were even with those teams. Entering last night’s game in Washington, the Bruins were even with the Flyers and two points ahead of the Rangers. It was safe to say that the points at stake in the nation’s capital were needed.
The slight problem, though, was that the Caps are the best team in the NHL and they weren’t exactly going to roll over and allow the Bruins to leave D.C. with a deuce and an all but locked up playoff spot.
Sure, enough, not only did the Capitals win the game in overtime, they did so with out a conclusively-earned goal. That just isn’t fair. We all know the Capitals have the best record in the NHL. They have a two-time MVP and more ways to score on you than Jesse James at a tattoo convention (Sorry, I was choosing between him, The Situation at Spring Break and Tiger Woods at the AVN Awards. I went with timeliness.) Anyways, the point is that the Capitals don’t need the refs help/incompetence to win games. That is what the Bruins need.
Before the game, Claude Julien said the Bruins would need to be “perfect” to win last night. He was correct. The Bruins made three mistakes and it cost them three times in a 3-2 loss to the league’s best.
- In the first period, Zdeno Chara commits too much to Alex Ovechkin, going for the big hit in open ice rather than focusing on separating Ovie from the puck or blocking a pass. Ovechkin’s pass reaches Nicklas Backstrom whose shot slips behind Rask and may or may not have crossed the goal line before Dennis Wideman swatted it out. More on that in a second.
Goal? No Goal? Not Sure
- In the second period, Mike Knuble scored a very Knuble-like goal. He crashed the net hard and had the puck bang in off of him like three times. Again, the goal needed to be looked at quickly, but there was no clear cut evidence that it was kicked or gloved in. Bruins covered the play pretty well, but Chara again was the man beaten for the goal. In that situation, he could have roughed up Knuble a bit.
- The winning goal will probably fall at the heels of Wideman thanks to his penalty in overtime leading to Brooks Laich’s power play goal. We will discuss his game in a few, but that was maybe the luckiest goal the Caps scored all night. With a 4-on-3 power play, the Caps went with Ovie, Backstrom, Alex Semin and Laich. No defense in the world is favored against that attack. Semin took a slap shot from the point and instead of reaching Rask for a save or – more likely based on the direction of the shot – go wide – the shot hit Laich in the leg and dropped to his feet where he was wide open in the middle of the PK triangle. Rask had already committed over to the shot and when Laich looked up down he had wide open net in front of him for the layup-winner.
The sequence leading up to the game-winner by Laich will be the most talked about today. Did Wideman take a penalty in overtime? Yes he did. His stick got up in the face of Tomas Fleischmann and based on the rules, it was deserving of a trip to the sin bin. However, it needs to be mentioned that Wideman did not come in high or need to use the high stick to try and save a bad situation that he caused. Simply put, his stick got caught up when taking the body and it rode up Fleichmann and swiped him in the face. Saying that this penalty proves Wideman is a bad player who is single-handedly killing the Bruins is just reaching for something safe and comforting, like Tiger and his Ambien.
Back off Wides, people. Get creative.
If you want to talk about careless high sticks, take a look at Alex Semin chopping off a piece of Chara’s face in the second period. You could see blood dripping of Big Z’s face as he skated off the ice and the area around where the incident occurred looked pretty much like a cherry Slurpee had been spilled. However, since all four officials on the ice missed the call – including consensus best ref in the NHL Bill McCreary – there was no penalty. Not the minimum minor for high sticking. Not the double-minor for drawing blood. Not the five-minute major for the unwanted cosmetic surgery Chara went through.
My point here, and I swear there is one, is that Wideman did more than his share to help the Bruins win last night. He scored a clutch goal with 1.6 seconds left in the first period to send the B’s to the dressing room tied. He played almost 29 minutes of defense on a night where the B’s pretty much skated four defensemen. He may or may not have made a dashing save on the goal line. Truth be told, if the Bruins received 82 games a year from Wideman like they did last night, he would be a vaunted part of this team.
Back to the first goal. My contention is that Chara overplayed Ovechkin on the play, leaving Rask out to dry. No question that Backstrom’s shot trickled past Rask, a shot that Tuukka should really have stopped clean. The tricky spot is whether or not the puck completely crossed the goal line. McCreary, again sticking his nose in the game, emphatically signaled goal. That was the key point in the whole thing. The goal light never came on, but once Old Mustache McCreary went pointing at the net like it was on fire the lights, whistles and sirens went off. Now, the optimal play here for El Mustachio’s NHL referee brother was to let play continue and take a looksie on replay at the next whistle. If it’s a goal, okay then. If not, carry on. Instead, his artistic signaling of a good goal swayed the outcome of the call and thus the game. Much like NFL instant replay, there needed to be irrefutable evidence that the puck did not cross the goal line to overturn McCreary’s call. If there was no conclusive angle, the call would stand. After six
No, sir. YOU deserve a miscounduct penalty after last night.
Anyways, where do the B’s go from here? Well, they did a good job of fighting with the Caps last night and snagging one point. That was a HUGE point as it leaves the Bruins with a one-point advantage over the Flyers for seventh place and the ability to dodge the Caps in the first round. The Bruins are also three points ahead of New York. A quick look at the final three games for each team shows the Bruins with a slight advantage on at least taking the eighth spot. The one thing working in the Bruins’ favor is that Philly and New York have a home-and-home with each other this weekend. In a perfect world, one of those two teams (hopefully Philly for my sake down here in the Illadelph) sweeps and sends the other to the golf course. If that happens, the Bruins need just two points over their final three games to pretty much secure a playoff spot. Thanks to the NHL’s points for losing system, there are about a billion permutations of what can happen. Two wins will give the Bruins 89 points and require the Flyers to win all three of their final games to overtake them for seventh. In fact, three losses in overtime or in shootouts by the Bruins should be enough to get them in. Any way you look at it, the playoffs have already started for the Bruins.
One Response to “Wideman Critiques are Wide Right”
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It is nice to finally see an article on the internet that does not villify Dennis Wideman. He did play very good on Monday, as he had every game since the Buffalo game. He has been consistent getting into the offensive play, keeping the puck in and deep on pinches as well as getting his shot through. He made the right play on Alex on the first goal, not his fault. Granted it was a penalty but if Flischmann did not react like JFK at Dealey Plaza then maybe it does not get called like the Semin high stick.