As I wrote on ye 'ole Twitter feed after last night's Vancouver Canucks win in overtime: "OK, now I'm *really* starting to reconsider my pick of the Blues in six." It's still early, but I'm fairly certain we're already into the metric tons of poop being shoveled at me for selecting the St. Louis Blues during our Stanley Cup playoff previews.
It's deserved, of course, because the two things I wagered on came up craps: The Blues power play, eighth in the NHL and their offensive engine, went a pathetic 1-for-24 against the Canucks; and while Chris Mason wasn't awful, he wasn't Roberto Luongo and he was definitely a little soft at the wrong times.
So there's that. I soon as I saw Mirtle pick the Canucks, I said, "Hey, that's pretty shrewd, I wonder who I ... [expletive]." You win some, you lose some; I'm not about to get all Brodeur over it. Incidentally, the Blues Eulogy will be up this afternoon.
One lingering bad aftertaste from last night's Game 4 in St. Louis: The disallowed goal that could have given the Blues a 3-2 lead in the second period. You can see in the image above, the puck was over the line; but here's how it played out, via the Belleville News:
The would-be goal was immediately waved off by referee Marc Joannette behind the net and the play went to a video review. The video replay seemed to show the puck across the goal line, but the ruling was that the referee's whistle had blown -- or there was intent to blow the whistle -- before that had occurred.
Dear god no ... not the "intent to blow" rule, one of the most frustrating in hockey. The NHL Situation Room blog confirmed that Jonnette's claim that the play was dead took replay out of the equation. Take a look and listen for yourselves at about the 3:15 mark of this NHL video:
Sports
If there's been one consistent referee headache this postseason, it's been quick whistles from behind the net. On at least four different times in Game 2 of the Washington Capitals/New York Rangers series, loose pucks were whistled dead because the referee lost sight of them. There have been times when goalies wanted to move the puck to a teammate with their glove but couldn't because of a quick whistle.
This one, of course, goes even further: Intent to blow a quick whistle. All of this said, two questions:
1. Pass or Fail: The disallowed goal for the Blues against the Canucks last night.
2. Should plays be considered "dead" at the sound of the whistle or in the referee's mind?
