Red Wing Roundup - June 4th
Ashley Gallant | National Hockey League
Jun 4, 11:29 AM | Hype this story!
Babcock upset with interference penalties
During yesterday’s press conference, TSN’s Gino Reda asked Mike Babcock about the two goaltender interference penalties in overtime of game 5. At first, Babcock didn’t want to make a big issue of it, but he quickly changed his mind.
“I’ll jump on the soap box,” said Babcock. “We talk about scoring more goals in the National Hockey League. We want more goals. No they don’t – don’t tell me that. I’ve never seen anything like that in my whole life.”
“Just had it. I’m going to try what the other guy has been trying all series,” alluding to Michel Therrien’s complaints earlier in the series.
No panic in the Red Wings’ dressing room
Babcock is confident and calm. After all, his team is still only 1 win away from hoisting the Stanley Cup, and they have dominated the Penguins for most of the series. Who wouldn’t be confident?
“In every game in this series, even the ones we lost,” he says, “holy mackerel, we’ve been pretty good.”
Most would expect the team to be panicked, a little unsure of themselves. Being 35 seconds away from winning the Stanley Cup, only to have it put back in its traveling box, might do that. But not to this team.
“We are going to do what we always do,” he says. “The biggest thing is clearing your mind, remembering that the only people that can help you are the people in the room. ... If we can create normalcy, I think we win.”
Detroit Free Press writer disgusted that game 5 was decided by special teams
Drew Sharp’s column today was surprising. He was clearly upset over the penalties called in overtime Monday night. There has been much debate over the two goaltender interference calls, and I don’t blame people for questioning the calls because you could make an argument either way.
What got me was that he was also upset that the refs called the high-sticking penalty that led to Sykora’s winning goal.
“Nothing short of decapitation should merit a man-advantage in overtime. It’s the antithesis of the hockey code — play until you bleed and then play even harder. The overtime officiating was an insult to the players’ unflinching commitment to sacrifice their bodies at any cost for the ultimate prize,” wrote Sharp.
Are you kidding me? The NHL has established rules to crack down on obstruction so that speed and skill rule. The refs need to call a hook or a high stick, whether it’s the season opener or an OT game in the finals. Throwing the rules out the window in the playoffs would suggest that the rules themselves are not important; why have a rule at all if it will not be enforced at all times.
Sure, we debate calls all the time, but Jiri Hudler’s penalty was automatic and should not be debated.
Sharp wrote that “winning an overtime classic with a man-advantage…seems cheap.” Well, winning because you broke the rules and were not penalized seems a little more ‘cheap’ to me.
Comments
Dabich
Jun 4, 12:38 PM
Sounds like a moron to me. Who would want penalties NOT called? I bet if it were the other way around, and say, Ruutu put a high stick on Lidstrom and made him bleed, and NO penalty was called, Sharp would be the first one crying! Moron.
Ben Schmidt
Jun 4, 01:18 PM
Why do I get the feeling that Babcock would have no trouble with getting goaltender interference calls if Pens were running into Osgood? Oh, wait, that’s right, he was getting those calls in the first two games, and he seemed to think those calls were fair back then.
Honestly, I think he’s just doing the same thing Therrien was after the first two games: trying to distract the press from asking the players, “what went wrong?”
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