(Get) A Sporting Life

You would think that in front of a larger audience for a Stanley Cup final the NHL would quit the outrageous favoritism and fixing of games on the behalf of the Ottawa Senators. You might think that, but you would be wrong. Yet AGAIN the league has used video "replay" to screw teams playing against Ottawa. To be fair, today it was with a twist. Usually the league merely takes away goals scored by Ottawa's opposition, but today they decided to give Ottawa a goal they didn't score (legally) and overrule the on ice official (who made the no-brainer correct call for a change.) Welcome to the NHL: Joke League of all Joke Leagues.

I'm gonna assume there will be no "goal disallowed" shenanigans in the finals. Though, why I can just assume that even I'm not sure. (Brett Hull's Cup clinching "goal" anyone?) I'm just gonna hope for a well officiated Finals. So lets break down these teams, shall we: Goaltending : Everything starts with the net minders. Even in the "new" NHL, good goalies are gonna stop 91-94% of the pucks thrown at them. So it is Ottawa's Emery against the Duck's Giguere. Emery has gone 12-3 in the playoffs with 3 shutouts and a .919 save percentage. Giguere has gone 9-3 with no shutouts and a .931 save percentage. GASL will give a slight advantage to Anaheim here. Giguere played a bigger role in getting the Duck's to this point then Emery has. Emery has yet to face real adversity in these playoffs, while Giguere came up huge against Detroit. Anaheim +1 Defense : Both Ottawa and Anaheim have deep bluelines. Ottawa's defensemen have picked...

Good God. Senators get yet another goal for an opponent disallowed. They get what could charitably be called "questionable" penalty calls to give them a two-man advantage to take a lead. (To my mind one of those penalties was questionable, the other was a complete and utter joke.) Alfredsson gets no call on an obvious boarding call that was borderline for being a major penalty. AND they get a winning goal off of a draw that looked like the linesman was throwing the puck backward. (Did that look like a fair draw to anyone???) For all of those who say that all the breaks "even out," I defy you to look at the last three months of Ottawa's season and see anything evening out.