Controversy

"Referees don't normally cheer for teams, but I'll guarantee you, they're cheering for Detroit to tie this game up." (Detroit Red Wings Analyst Mickey Redmond, February 29th, 2008, 13:21 of the third period.)

Absolutely @&%!#$ing right, Mickey.

The Sharks defeated the Detroit Red Wings tonight 3-2 at Joe Louis Arena. Leading the game 2-1 midway through the third period, the Sharks were attacking the Detroit net when a shot deflected up and hit the netting behind the goal. The puck flopped back down onto the ice just outside the goal mouth, and Devin Setoguchi poked it in. The whistle was never blown, the referee pointed at the puck in the net, and the Sharks were ahead 3-1.

The Red Wings, naturally, protested, and they certainly had a case. But unfortunately for them, rulings on whether or not the puck leaves play are not subject to video review (much as, say, pass interference is not subject to review in the NFL). The officials really had no choice but to award the goal to the Sharks, who were guilty of no crime other than continuing to play when there was no whistle.

Missed calls like this are simply part of hockey, or indeed of any sport--they are a consequence of having human, fallible officials. In this sense having the puck go into your net after the puck leaves play but isn't blown dead isn't really a whole lot different than, say, having an official accidentally obstruct a clearance attempt and thereby inadvertently hold the zone for the opposing team. Such a thing happened to the Sharks earlier this season in a game against Boston, and the Bruins went on to score the game-winning goal off that sequence.

So what happened tonight wasn't so much unfair officiating as it was human officiating. Things like this will happen now and then, and if I were a Wings fan I'd be hopping mad. The officials no doubt felt bad about it, but they should not have let this influence how they called the game from then on.

Instead, they pulled one of these.

By sending Christian Ehrhoff to the box on a galactically weak interference call with Detroit already on the power play, thus handing the Wings a 5-on-3 that of course they immediately converted, the referees demonstrated that they were in fact thinking precisely what Mickey Redmond thought they were thinking. They crossed the line from human officiating to bad officiating. Inadvertently penalizing one of the teams due to a mistake is just something that happens every now and then and is unavoidable. Deliberately penalizing one of the teams to "even things up" should never happen and is totally avoidable.

I should point out, since I've mentioned Redmond in this post, that I have no quarrel whatsoever with the Red Wings' broadcast team's passionate disputation of the Setoguchi goal. Even if the play had been more marginal (and it looked pretty clear to me that it went off the net) I would have no quarrel with them. I strongly believe that hometown broadcast teams should cheerfully and unapologetically call games in a way that is biased towards their own squad. Seriously. (Broadcast teams on nationally-televised games are a different story).

Disputed goal or no, the Sharks played well tonight and deserved to win. Teams that are playing well tend to get the breaks, and that's what happened in this one.

Blues tomorrow, although I won't be able to watch because I'm having the 'rents over to the new place for dinner (finally).