Held Up Without A Gun! Panthers Lose 3-2 (Updated)

Today’s music video is Held Up Without A Gun by Bruce Springsteen.  Obviously fitting for last night.

I’ve always said a game should never come down to one play, one call, one shot.  Last night it did.  With the score 3-2 Atlanta and with just over six minutes left in the final period, Florida Panthers defenceman Bryan McCabe’s slapshot appeared to have crossed the goal line.  Or did it?  The officials on the ice clearly indicated no goal.  The play was not reviewed and the puck was quickly dropped four seonds later, much to the anger and disappointment for the Florida Panthers.

When McCabe was asked in his postgame interview about slowing down the dropping of the puck, his comment was, “it’s not my (expletive) job.  An email from the Miami Herald was answered early this morning by the NHL’s Mike Murphy who admitted that it was a goal.  Here’s the entire story as posted by George Richards from On Frozen Pond.

JUST ADDED:  Harvey Fialkov from the Sun-Sentinel.

This marks the third time this season that an official call, or should I say non-call has cost the Panthers points on the season.  Utterly disgusting that this is happening.  Commenting on the situation as well is head coach of the Panthers, Peter DeBoer:

"“It looks like a goal to me,” Panthers coach Pete DeBoer said. “I’m baffled as to why the referees, to make certain, wouldn’t have gone to the penalty box and asked that they take a look at it or Toronto would have buzzed and taken a second look at it."

And then this:

"“They look at everything else. I got no explanation from them why, other than they said if it was close, Toronto would have buzzed them and they never got a buzz from Toronto.”"

Here’s the TSN Boxscore.

Besides that non sense the Panthers generated some unrewarded offensive chances especially in the opening minutes of the game.  Pressure and puck control in the Atlanta zone was heavily applied, but thanks to Thrashers goaltender Ondrej Pavelec, he kept the Cats off the scoreboard.  Pavelec made 33 saves on the night for Atlanta and continued his solid play as he won his 15th game of the season and his third in a row.

Rich Peverley was the offensive hero of the night as he scored twice.  His first goal game on a Thrasher power play when Peverley skated around Mike Weaver and put home his own rebound giving Atlanta 2-1 lead with under a minute left in the first period.  A deflating moment for the sparse crowd at the Bank Atlantic Center.

The second goal from Peverley was scored on a 2 on 1 rush with a shot that Panthers goaltender Tomas Vokoun should have had, giving Atlanta a 3-1 lead, and finishing the evening for Vokoun.  Scott Clemmensen game on in relief and held the door shut the rest of the way.  Andrew Ladd had two assists on the night and Niclas Bergfors had the first goal for Atlanta.  This was only the third victory in the past eight games for the Flames Thrashers.

Florida’s Chris Higgins, sporting quite the left eye after his incident on Sunday against the Rangers where a skate grazed his face, continued his solid play.  Chris scored the second Panther goal of the night, and also assisted on Stephen Weiss’s first goal of the game for Florida.  The line of Weiss, Higgins and Frolik looks to be very creative and is finishing their chances.  That’s going to have to continue for any success this team is going to have.  By the way the Higgins goal was his 100th of his NHL career.  congrats Chris.  Here’s hoping the next 100 come, and faster!

Missing from the lineup last night was Evgeny Dadonov who was out with an ankle.  Meaning that his ankle was hurt in the Rangers game on Sunday.  As my partner Dave Lasseter and I discussed between the second and third periods, Dadonov’s abscense was noticeable.  The Panthers lacked jump and maybe emotion as the game wore on.  Evgeny has been a fiesty and skilled player, and even though he has cooled off, we (me and Dave) feel that his energy has rubbed off  on the others.

Not to be lost in all this was the five minute boarding call on Florida’s Shawn Matthias in the second period.  From my seat (upstairs. shhh!), I really couldn’t tell if it was actually worthy of the five minutes.  Head coach Pete DeBoer felt as though it was a questionnable call, so I’ll go with him on that.

This is a big week for Florida, as they have three more games against South Eastern Division teams.  I was hoping for 7 out of the next 10 points, so that means that in order to accomplish that, the pressure is really on them.  Falling back to an even .500 at 18-18-2 Florida is in 10th place seven points back of the struggling Montreal Canadiens.  Montreal is 3-6-1 in their last 10 games, and some of the faithful are beginning to call for the head of Uncle Jack, Count Chocula, Jacques Martin.  Whichever name you prefer.  Speaking of Uncle Jack, there was a funny Twitter comment last night about him as Team Canada was surrendering it’s three goal lead to Russia.  Something to the effect of, “Is Jacques Martin behind Team Canada’s bench”?  Some things never change.  Or is it that your reputation follows you everywhere.

Anyway, short memory is needed for this boys.  The Carolina Hurricanes are here Friday.  Must win?  I think so.  If we want to keep pace.

Thanks for reading.  Your comments are welcomed and appreciated.

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