So last night's Chicago - Nashville game, a loose puck behind the net and Byfuglien and another Nashville player skate toward it. The puck is 5-6 feet away and Byfuglien turns and decks the Nashville player with a shoulder. Insta-penalty call on Byfuglien for interference. It was the identical scenario when Recchi hit Kennedy for the game winner in game three.

This is why my frustration level is high with the Sabres, but more so with the NHL. The officiating is pure garbage, and I will spend this summer deciding whether I want to continue being a "die-hard" type that watches as many games as possible and studies all NHL news and details. I can't justify spending so much time on this game, only to watch the playoffs look like a random 8-ball toy is deciding the fate of each series.

Ditto.

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Wheelhouse

oh, i thought this thread was going to be about trying to control me. you cant control me, you can only hope to contain me.

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I was just going to post this. The league is slowly becoming a joke and almost unwatchable with the officiating being so inconsistent.

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

You guys honestly think that Recchi should have been penalized for that? Wow...I didn't see this Nash/Chi incident, but the Recchi/Kennedy case was simply a battle that Recchi won by shouldering Kennedy onto his ass. The puck was right there, it was no where even CLOSE to being interference.

Inconsistency is what bugs us. Not the call.

Recci got away with the same thing that Kaleta got penalized for.

And we're seeing different variations of calls throughout the rest of the playoffs.

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Wheelhouse

I seem to remember Kaleta boarding Lucic from behind...all Recchi did was shove Kennedy off the puck.

That being said, there IS a lot of inconsistency in this league with the officiating, no doubt about that.

Gasoline, I'll argue that interference call to the death. Neither player had control of the puck, and neither player had played the puck. The puck was at least five feet away from Recchi, and further away from Kennedy. If Kennedy had decked Recchi it would've been an interference penalty as well.

The call on Byfuglien was the right call, and that play has always been interference since I've been watching the game. If either player had played the puck, or they were both right on top of the puck where either could play it, interference would not apply. In both scenarios the puck was away from both players, and it was interference both times. The announcers in the Chi-Nash game immediately brought up the Recchi play, and without obviously criticising the league said that the Recchi play should have been called also.

If you think the Recchi play was good, then every player (or at least the two closest to the puck) could just turn and try to deck each other all the time. The game would become even more chaotic than it already is.

http://sabres.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?h ... 9&fr=false

Watch the play and you'll see that Kennedy is between the lower circle and the goal line when he's hit, and the puck is in the corner. That's about 9 feet from the puck...not even close to it, so how could Recchi "shove Kennedy off the puck" when he wasn't even on it?.

Watch the Recchi play, and watch Byfuglien's play. They're almost as identical. One was called, one was not.

And yes, THAT is interference. Look it up.

It's like saying Boychuk's slash on Vanek was a good defensive play.
That was interference, and look at the McCormick garbage as well as Kaleta's so called "boarding".

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

The Kaleta boarding penalty was the biggest joke of a call ever, if that's boarding then every hit along the boards is boarding

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

If I was a better student of the english language, Id type a letter and send it to Gallisano... Bettmen and Campbell... if they get enough fans complaining about the inconsistency of the calls and it could hinder fan support maybe something will happen, probably not, but it would make me feel better.... One of the main reason Bettmen needs to go... as well as his piss poor TV package... he works for the owners after all... hell send the letter to every owner... can't stand Bettmen...

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Fans have been complaining about playoff officiating as far back as I can remember. It'll never change.

Maybe Bettmen needs to have an IQ test.

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

Bettmen needs to be shot....

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Change Betmen change Campbell... maybe it'll change.... Call Tags!!! lol...

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Agree.

The playoffs shouldn't have any sort of different officiating like it does, call the game the same always. no matter what is at stake.

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Whine, whine, whine. You can blame the officiating all you want, but the fact of the matter is we ultimately lost this series due to blowing a couple of leads and abysmal special teams.

I'm not going to argue over the Recchi play. I thought it was a good non-call. That's my opinion, I'm entitled to have one.

Don't start with the "whine" stuff. I have an unbiased issue with the NHL officiating, regardless of how it affected the Sabres series. I'm taking the extra time to specify the problem, so I'm just defending my position. Of course Buffalo should have been better on special teams, but despite that they still could have won due to a 15-10 advantage during 5-on-5 play. Injuries at the worst time and bad calls had as much to do with the outcome as bad special teams. Anyone one of those factors change and that's enough for Buffalo to win the series.

As I said in another thread, the difference between winning and losing in the playoffs is slim, and for that reason bad officiating has too much of an effect, and there still hasn't been anything done to correct it. This time around it was Buffalo's turn to suffer from it, but it's been a league wide issue for years, and I'm finally getting tired of it enough to question my level of interest as a fan.

I hate when people draw the whine card, because usually they just want to annoy someone not apply an opinion.

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.