The evening after the Detroit Red Wings lost 3-2 to the Florida Panthers thanks to a heavily-disputed goal, I don’t want to poke the wound, per se, but:
The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan penned a “the day after” notebook, and these player comments stood out to me:
“It’s frustrating because we battled our tails off to get at least a point in this game and to get that ripped away from us, at this stage of the season, it’s probably the most frustrated I’ve been,” Abdelkader said.
Especially when the rule is so hazy.
“Losing a game like this, with the points so important, on a call that yesterday could have been goalie interference and tonight it’s not,” Zetterberg said, “that’s what’s frustrating.”
The Wings are still only 7 points behind the Flyers with a game in hand, but they’d have to climb over the Islanders, Hurricanes, Rangers and now the Panthers to swipe the Flyers’ Wild Card spot.
Worse, the Wings have only 17 regulation-or-overtime wins, which is 3rd-worst in the Eastern Conference, so Detroit would have to earn more points than their opponents to break any ties in the standings.
What a dumb photo by NHL.com, the puck is already in the net. Duh, what happened before that is the important. Only NHL.COM
You should have read NHL.com’s game recap. It was a blip on the radar screen, unsurprisingly.