Marc Staal really pissed me off in that period. He really bugged me on one particular play. You know the one, where Scott Gomez gets boarded (it wasn’t as blatant as the Joe made it sound, Scotty turned at the least second, I don’t the Walker could have held up at that point, and he was just trying to finish his check), and all hell broke lose. Well if you watched the play, immediately after the hit in question Walker skated right to Staal to go for the puck. It was right then and there that Staal needed to drop the gloves and defend Gomez. Not Jagr, not Avery, but Staal. He had the chance, but he didn’t even look angry, he just looked like he wanted to make the defensive play. I give all the credit in the world to Sean Avery for defending Gomez despite both his wrists being seriously injured (and I think he reinjured them on the play, though we haven’t heard anything concrete yet), but it should never have come to that. Marc Staal needed to step up and make that play.
Other than that, this old-time hockey stuff is really fun. I dont have a single complaint to make. We played well, the reffing was actually pretty fair, except for the bogus dive on Jagr. Jagr doesn’t dive, period, it should never even be a question. I have never seen him dive in all the games I have seen him play, never in Pittsburgh, never in Washington, and never here. He just doesn’t do it. If you watch the play carefully his skate hits the Cane skate and thats what causes him to fall. But that 1 call wasn’t a big deal, everything else was pretty fair. The Rangers didn’t deserve to get a powerplay after the 2nd fight, both players dropped their gloves at the same time, and Orr even got away with an interference hit. We can’t complain about the reffing in this one.
