Stars close home schedule with 5-1 loss against IceHogs

That right there was not the note to end it on. It was a stinker of a game, made worse by bad officiating from Ian Croft. Apparently, he's got a history elsewhere of making bad calls/no calls that I found. Texas didn't help matters much by reverting to their mid-season selves. Passes through the neutral zone ended up on IceHog sticks all night and an extended offensive attack was nowhere to be found. Now I know we're playing with a lot of guys out of the lineup and such, but the fans deserved better at the last game.

Rockford got the scoring started early when Jack Skille scored on a rebound of a Danny Richmond shot from the point. He managed to beat Climie to the puck on the right side and put it home just 91 seconds in. The first period ended with Luke Gazdic in the locker room after a spirited battle with Bollig of the Hogs. Gaz got in his punches but also managed to get his shirt ripped. He came out in the second wearing the number two.

All of the second period's goals were scored on the power play. Rockford went first. On a play where faceoff man Bracken Kearns should have been thrown out of the faceoff circle, Cullen scored on a screened Matt Climie stick-side high. Texas scored next with a pretty one. Travis Morin streaked down the left wing side and threw one towards the net that Warren Peters hit with his outstretched stick and deflected up into the top-right corner of the net and past Crawford. Finally, it was Rockford again with a goal by Greentree. Really, Climie beat himself. He stuck out the pad the deflect a puck to the corner and instead it jumped up on him and went roof.

Texas came out in the third with a lot of fire and almost had a goal or two. Mathieu Tousignant went to high on a shot where he had Crawford on the ice dead to rights. And then there was the no goal. The light went off, the crowd saw the goal, but Ian Croft waived it off. Crawford stopped play a few seconds later, but there was no review that we could see. It looked like the puck went in along the ice five-hole and bounced right back out at the same velocity due to hitting the center post hard.

There was no review. There were no replays. There was no clarification. As I've talked with some folks on Twitter, they indicate that they puck hit the sidepost and bounced out. I'm not sure about that given the angles we saw, but I would have liked to see it again. We probably won't though. That's how media coverage works in the AHL. Rockford scored twice more as the no-goal seemed to let the air out of the building and the team.

During all three periods, it seemed like there were all sorts of things not called. Mathieu Tousignant bore the brunt of it. Tousi got punched in the face on a scrum in front of the net and also got sat on back in the offensive zone as the IceHogs took the puck 200 feet away. There were others, but those stuck out most.

Tonight's lines:
Sceviour-Gagnon-Tousignant
Wilson-Peters-Korostin
Korostin-Morin-Chupp
Gazdic-DeVergilio-Neal

Jancevski-Stephenson
Fortunus-Hutchinson
Tr. Ludwig-Stafford

Climie

Injuries, scratches, and notes:
McCulloch, Sawada, Lindgren, Beaudoin, Rallo (injured)
Ty. Ludwig, Shelast, Graham, Krahn (scratched)
Benn (call-up)

Tonight's attendance was 6,665.

AHL Gamesheet - Texas v. Rockford - April 9 2010

Comments

  1. From my angle it looked like it deflected off the side post, whether it was in or not I couldn't tell, I think if the light came on it was probably close enough to warrant a review though, although I don't know how many camera angles they really have to look at anyway, when you watch on the internet it's always just the one angle from way up at the top of the arena, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that one though, either way we didn't play well enough to deserve a win. He did definitely blow a few penalty calls though, but when there's a chant of "you suck ref" going through the building, it's definitely not going to help him call a better game for the home team. That's not to say that he didn't suck, but he's not nearly as bad as Koharski if you ask me, that guy always seems like he's out to get us (I think he especially hates Jancevski for some reason, he always calls #4 for tripping).

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  2. Tousignant also got punched in the face when the guy got off of him and the ref clearly saw what was going on. A Rockford player feigned injury behind his own net and when he saw there would be no call he got up and rejoined the play. He should have been called for diving. Peters went to the box after a delayed penalty and two Icehogs skated over to him from some distance to shove him around a bit and nothing was called.

    The "ref you suck" chant was kind of funny. That was the first time I can remember the entire building -- seemed like it from my seats, anyway -- giving the ref such hell.

    It was one of the worst officiated games all year, but not as bad as the one #18 Chris Cozzan reffed. Both Cozzan and Croft need some remedial training.

    I don't remember them naming the three stars last night, so I am naming Ian Croft as the number 1 star for the Icehogs.

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  3. Ian Croft: if you can't say anything nice about someone promote him Upwards where he cause more havoc! Reminds me of school!

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  4. That was the worst officiated game all year.
    The last thing we wanted was to encourage a team we OWNED all year by allowing them to come into our building and win easily.
    The "ref", and I use quotes because he didn't actually do anything, was either an idiot, or incompetent. At the end of the second it was 3-1 due to 2 PP goals that were lousy calls, and then Clime let in 2 softies in the third.
    I completely agree with the comment above about the ref being the #1 star of the game.
    It wasn't just bad, if he were paid to help Rockford, he couldn't have done a better job.
    I really hope there's some kind of grading system for the officials, and we'll see better in the playoffs. It was clear that Rockford was the agressor all night, and the linesman skated furiously to seperate the players at every whistle, and this dumbass didn't seem to notice that.

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  5. I'm pretty sure there is an internal grading system for refs and linesman. Every game is recorded and it is possible to go back and re-analyze plays. The refs chosen for the playoffs are the ones that do the best job during the regular season, at least they are in the NHL.

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