A 1 or 2 Point Mistake Means What?

Well, thank you Mick McGeough.

I'm not one to blame games on referees. Lets be frank, no matter who you are or what you do you will make mistakes. It's the job of a player to fight through the occasional mistakes a referee will make and still win. It's a job of a player to be good enough for the entire game that one or two mistakes won't be enough to cost anyone a game.

But lets face it, Dallas and Edmonton are pretty tight. I don't mean good friends. They're pretty close. Both teams have good depth but few stars. Strong goaltending and lots of youth. Lots of speed and they do the little things well. They have strong depth at defense and we have strong depth at forward. It's a great match up.

So when Morrow scores on interference and the Oilers have a goal waived off with 7 seconds to play, well that's enough.

If they get 1 out of 2 calls right it's a tie game and each team gets at least one point. If they get 2 out of 2 calls right - well who knows what happens. Could change the momentum of the whole damn game.

If a player makes two huge mistakes that cost his team the game a coach (considering the player's history and skill) will sit his butt on the bench. If a player makes a mistake that results in someone's injury or something of that nature the league will sit his butt on the bench.

So what I'm asking for today is accountability. I know the Oilers won't get their point back. However, I think it's time for leagues to step up and hold referees accountable for mistakes this big. You screw up this bad it should cost you.

I don't know what the punishment should be, all I know is there should be one. And an apology to the team it hurt. Unfortunately, that's not likely going to happen.

One quick game thought though. Ray Ferraro said something very interesting about how the Oilers had no cohesion in their breakout. The defense isn't moving the puck out well, and the forwards are too scrambled and far appart to build any momentum. The rush goes no where, so we just end up flipping it ahead. It happened time after time today. Dallas was able to control the play because of a complete lack of chemistry and quick puck movement in the defensive and neutral zones.

Which leads me to think with more practice and more time to work together - some of this timing is going to improve. It has to. That's the only thing I can come up with to explain the problem our boys have putting the puck in the net at the consistency we fans expected.

Oh well, I don't like watching losses like this where the team seems to have no zip. It was like this against Nashville, and has been in quite a few games this year. Things still aren't coming together. 7-6 is not going to be good enough in March, at least it's not what I expect. They're going to come around, and 1 goal losses to good teams aren't enough to cause me to lose faith in them competing for the division title.