SENShobo
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Dusting Off An Oldie
by SENShobo on 03/10/09 at 08:11 AM ET
Comments (2)
It’s the simple things in life, really, and there’s no simple joy greater than beating the Leafs, by a single goal (2-1), in front of the home town non-sellout crowd.
Ok, so it wasn’t perfect, so Gerber didn’t start, so Wilson dusted off his rule book in the dying minutes, but let’s look past that to the ‘W’ for now.
In the dying minutes of the third, but with full time available for the Leafs to make use of a penalty, Ron Wilson called the referee over to check out Jason Spezza’s stick, and an illegal stick penalty (2 minutes and $200) was awarded. From the Ottawa Sun,
“The boys did a good job of killing that for me. You don’t want to see them score when you get a penalty for a call like that,” said Spezza, who had an assist on Heatley’s goal. “Nobody here knows the rules. I don’t know what the clarification is. We still never got an answer. (Refereee Dan O’Halloran) just told me it was too skinny. It’s apparently too skinny. Real dangerous, I guess.”
....
“I’ve seen it two or three times in my career at the most,” said Alfredsson, who nearly put away the game on a 2-on-1 only five seconds into the Leafs’ power play. “I was surprised. The rules are there. That’s fine. That’s within the rules.”
According to the NHL rulebook, there is only one rule that could come close to covering this one,
The blade of the stick shall not be more than three inches (3”) in width at any point nor less than two inches (2”). All edges of the blade shall be beveled.
I can’t say I saw the stick or got to measure it, but 2” is small as it is, though I call it blade height and not width, and if indeed it was less than 2” at some point, the penalty was valid. Paul posted a good video of the stick, which indeed has an illogical looking tip that could qualify. However, for reference, if you want to get technical, every stick, as you go out to the rounded tip of the blade, will eventually get down below 2” unless the tip is squared off, which is a far more dangerous gouging tool.
Curtis Joseph apparently entered an elite club as well last night, according to NHL.com,
Joseph, who stopped 24 shots, became the sixth goalie in league history to allow 2,500 goals on Alfredsson’s score, an unassisted effort in the second period that tied it at 1.
“Good one. Good one,” Joseph said. “Believe me, it’s not baseball, we don’t keep stats like that. I mean, it just means I played a lot.”
The 20-year veteran joined Gilles Meloche and Grant Fuhr, who are tied with an NHL record 2,756 goals allowed, John Vanbiesbrouck, Tony Esposito and Patrick Roy.
Yet again, the simple joys. One more win and the series could be evened at three wins apiece, nothing but pride on the line. Gerber is expected to start in that final game in Toronto. I had been hoping to see him in Ottawa, getting the chance to show the team he knew them well by reading their plays and their shots, but at the same time I understand Wilson’s logic. By the time that last week rolls around, Gerber might finally be out of his Senators equipment and helmet, and he will be in front of Toronto fans, who will cheer him either for putting out great games between now and then, or for helping ease them into good draft lottery positioning; it’s win-win.
To speak of the draft lottery, the Sens are now one point outside the realm of teams that can jump into first pick overall, and with a game in hand on every team ‘ahead’ of them, you can expect Ottawa’s pick to slowly get worse. Still, as I hope to look at in the coming weeks, Ottawa does have promising opportunities coming up in the near future. One of those could be the rumour that Hilary Duff, who was at last night’s game and did not duck and roll from the cameras, is looking for a house in Ottawa. Take the rumour for what you will, but I somehow doubt you’ll be able to get Comrie to answer the question “Is it true that your girlfriend is buying you a house here in Ottawa, Mike?” Good luck with that.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Ottawa Senators | SENShobo | Permalink
Comments
On a Team 1200 interview spezza basically said while giggling
“I wonder if Gerbs told them to check”
Posted by BigSensFan on 03/10/09 at 09:25 AM ET
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Obviously Jason needs to consult with the league to see how he can make his special blade conform to the rules. I didn’t realize it was called for being too skinny, as the commentary guys were discussing how the guage should be able to slide down the stick easily, which made them believe he was being called for the stick blade being too thick.
Anyway made for some excitement. I also immediately questioned how Wilson would know what to look for, and thought of our old Swiss friend. I wonder if his old teammates thought the same…
Alfredssson was awesome. Hope he can put a few more years like this together.
Posted by His Dudeness on 03/10/09 at 08:42 AM ET