**Note: Just watching NHL on the Fly and seeing OTHER high stick penalties that weren't called last night around the league. WHAT IS GOING ON???
No Respect! We Get NO Respect I Tell You!
If you’re old enough to remember Rodney Dangerfield’s classic tag line, you can see Islanders Coach Jack Capuano doing his best impression of the iconic comedian. And sadly, he’s been doing it for months.
The usual professional attitude that players and coaches display towards the NHL officials was stretched to the limit last night in Newark. As Jack said, the game was lopsided and it was all due to the officials; Stephane Auger, Chris Lee, Shane Hever and Tim Nowak. Certainly these officials will find their names, usually never mentioned in print, in many news reports today.
But the truth is, it’s not just these four officials. The lack of respect offered the NY Islanders seems to be the rule and not the exception. There were David Banfield, Dan O'Halloran, Scott Driscoll and Steve Miller have turned a blind eye to the Islanders and Francois St Laurent and Stephen Walkom were the refs, and Darren Gibbs and Greg Devorski the linesmen during the St. Louis Blues game that Matt Martin was ignored when being goaded into a fight by Crombeen.
So what’s going on here?
The Islanders organization can’t say anything about it without being fined by the NHL, but certainly the fans and the writers can.
“Once the calls started coming, it took a little of the momentum away from our game.”
That started with a 2 minute roughing penalty on Zenon Konopka at the 20:00 minute mark of the first period. Z had taken a high-stick to the face, but that wasn’t called. Only Zenon sat in the box even though he was showing the refs he was bleeding. It just got worse from there.
Yes, it seemed a little unfair.
“There were a lot of them that were unfair.” Jack Capuano told Deb Placey in the post game report. “I’m really not too critical of the referees, but tonight it was lopsided one way for sure.”
Hmmmm… how much is THAT going to cost you Jack? $5,000? I don’t know. But I do know that there are sometimes fines for speaking your mind. For players on the ice, it seems the “fine” is being taken out of the game. That may have been the case for Frans Nielsen.
“That ten minute misconduct -- he’s got 28 penalty minutes all year. He’s an elite player in this league. He’s one of OUR elite players. All he said was “Give us a chance.” and was given the penalty.”
What? That’s it? Was there a “Hey you blind so&so”? Was there a “Have another donut” joke? No. There was a question on the ref’s ability to make an objective observation. For THAT, Frans Nielsen got ten minutes in the box while his team was short handed.
Let’s review:
So now the referees are NOT calling penalties on Islanders’ opposition and using the excuse they didn’t see an infraction. They ARE calling penalties on Islander players when they ARE warranted (Konopka for tripping in the 3rd) AND when they are marginal (Pick a hooking penalty on Hillen or Hamonic) and now they are being given misconducts for pleading their case to the refs. And don’t even get me started on what WOULD have happened if the player responsible for that “hockey play” that sent the Montreal player to the hospital was wearing an Isles jersey instead of a Bruins jersey. I think we may have seen the first public stoning in the NHL. What is this? When did the NHL Officials Association become run like a communist country?
The Devils had beat Atlanta the night before on the power play as well. But that is what happens when teams are down a man. You’re supposed to be able to score on the power play.
Jack agreed with Deb that the Isles were on the PK a good portion of the night. “We were. And when you are killing penalties, it shortens the bench. You’re playing certain guys and other guys can’t get into it (the play) and it takes the momentum away from the game.”
Especially when you’re playing against some highly skilled talent like that on the Devils squad. And while the Islanders penalty kill is pretty good, when you’re only given eleven seconds of power play time in a 60 minute game, your chances are minimized.
But there were chances. Most notably one by Michael Grabner (again) with a breakaway that was stopped by Brodeur. Grabner came down hard on himself via Twitter
“Man gotta score on one of my chances...I usually never complain but it's great to see how our assistant captains get talked to by the refs,”
Yep, he’s not happy. Especially knowing that he would have changed the outcome of that game.
Also not happy this morning has to be Matt Moulson. Not only was he awarded a goal (his 30th) and then had it taken away (crap! Back to 29!), he was also hit in the face with a puck that split his lip and required stitches.
While the Islanders came away from Newark with one point, they also must have come away with a greater sense of accomplishment and camaraderie. Blake Comeau was called “brilliant” in his “individual play” in the NHL.com recap of the game for his short handed goal. It was Andrew MacDonald’s shot “ripped from the left point” that was tipped by both Moulson and JT past Brodeur was called a “nifty deflection” and put the Isles up by one over the Devils.
But it was Clarkson’s goal at 5:42 of the third that was the killer. With Jack Hillen, just out of the box on a hooking penalty, Clarkson got lucky with a loose puck rebound in front of Montoya. Certainly, that is one he wishes he had back.
I found it interesting that Lemaire said his biggest mistake was telling his team they played well in the first. “I won’t do that again.” he told the reporters. “You know the Islanders, they come in, they never stop. If you drop your intensity, they’re coming.”
They did. Too bad the refs were there to make them stumble.
Islanders have an off day today and get ready to play the NY Rangers on Tuesday at MSG. I wonder which set of zebras are working that game.
Note: Michael Haley dropped the gloves trying to spark his team. According to my daughter "he dominated." But Adam Mair pulled a fast one on him and threw an extra little something after the fight was over. He managed to pull Haley to the ice to which my daughter yelled at the TV "Hey! Just because you manage to pull the guy down after it's over and sit on him doesn't mean you won the fight!"
New York Islanders Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»