It’s not a surprise that the Pittsburgh Penguins lost to the Washington Capitals Tuesday night. Despite entering the third period tied at one, the Penguins never had a chance after Capitals superstar Alex Ovechkin two-handed slashed Kris Letang in the back of the leg seconds into the final frame.
The Penguins, after all, were playing the wrong game.
Rewind 48 hours to the Penguins’ 2-1 shootout loss against the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday, when Penguins captain Sidney Crosby was whistled for an apparent tripping violation, only to have it negated after the referees conferenced.
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Such a correction is not common.
“That’s a first for me, that an official makes a call on the ice and then he huddles up with the other officials,” said NBC broadcaster Eddie Olczyk, who has been involved with the NHL as a player, coach and broadcaster since 1984.
The reason that Mr. Olczyk, and many other members of the media, some of whom have even speculated that the Penguins captain was receiving preferential treatment, aren’t used to that type of play is because that’s not how it’s done in the NHL.
For decades, the unofficial, yet still very official, way to handle a badly blown call was for the referee to go over to the bench and take 10-15 seconds of verbal abuse from the coach that was victimized, and then let the game play on right up until he could justify making an equally egregious call against the other side.
In the hockey world, two wrongs very much do make a right.
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So when Ovechkin attempted to remove the lower part of Letang’s right leg, and referees Kevin Pollock and Justin St. Pierre decided that no one saw enough of it to make a call, the Penguins needed to start playing a different game. Not the one with the sticks and the puck, or even the one with flying fists and brawls, but the one between two squads and the referees.
For a class on how to the play that game, here is an example from Mike Babcock and the Detroit Red Wings.
On May 31, 2009, at the end of a losing effort for the Penguins in game two of the Stanley Cup Final, Penguins center Evgeni Malkin jumped Red Wings star Henrik Zetterberg.
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By rights, Malkin should have – and initially did – receive an instigator penalty a one-game suspension for game three, pending NHL review. Before league officials had decided the matter, Babcock told MLive.com, “I don’t think anything will happen.”
That’s exactly what happened. The NHL rescinded Malkin’s instigator penalty, including its automatic suspension, and he was back in the lineup for Game 3 in Pittsburgh. What was Babcock to have his Red Wings to do? Jump Malkin with a much larger player, as he had done to Zetterberg? Have a Detroit enforcer fight a Penguins tough guy in a display of machismo?
No, the Red Wings did nothing at all. Nothing except commit enough uncalled interference over the next five games to make Dan Bylsma see red.
You see, in the game of team vs. team vs. stripes, it’s always better to be the aggrieved party. The Penguins should have taken a number and given the officials a chance to make it right, and they know it.
“What we should have done, is worked to get our power play,” said head coach Mike Johnston. “You know there’s one coming, and we took a few too many penalties ourselves.”
The Penguins did eventually get their makeup call – a totally bogus goaltender interference penalty on Brooks Laich with just over two minutes remaining – but in the meantime, they were so focused on exacting physical revenge that they committed 32 minutes’ worth of penalties, all while the officials were trying to look for a way to even things up.
“You want to respond when a guy gets slashed like that, but to a certain point,” said Crosby. “We’ve got to keep our emotion in check.”
By the way, while the Penguins were losing the game with the referees, they lost the other game – the one with the sticks and puck – as the Capitals scored on what was their fourth consecutive power play.
The Penguins do not have the best team in the NHL this year. If they want to come out on top at the end, they had better learn to play the game the right way – both of them.
