What is wrong with Boston? I don't care how poorly they've been playing over the past month, that's a team that still scares me in a one and done playoff scenario. Even homefield advantage doesn't negate how truly potent the Blazers could be if they get things figured out.
Buffalo, on the other hand is more of the same. Fantastic team that's prone to doing stupid things, like coughing up a transition opportunity to one of the scariest teams in the league with under 15 seconds to play. I wanted Washington to win to help with the playoff positioning for the Rock, and I had a funny feeling as time was winding down that Washington was going to find a way to pull it out. Washington is still scary too. And Calgary looks legit, the loss to Minnesota notwithstanding.
The Rock's weekend hinged on two crease calls, and some inexplicable officiating. When I was watching the game on Friday night against the Stealth (from more or less the same angle as the main TV/Livestream cameras) I immediately begged Cordingley to challenge the first Stealth goal by Rabil. It was pretty clear from my vantage that Rabil landed in the crease before the ball bounced in. I saw Cordingley checking out the jumbotron, but he must've been looking at the score and time on the clock, because he didn't throw the challenge flag. I watched the tape when I got home and it was actually worse than what I saw. Rabil's toe touched the line when he jumped, and he landed in the crease before the ball crossed: a double no-no. I can only assume the official was wowed by Rabil's hair, and how easily he got past Cam Woods, and completely forgot to do his job. I figured Cordingley didn't want to kill momentum or something intelligent like that, but that could've cost the Rock the game as it turned out, since it went to OT.
I was also entirely confused by the ref's decision to award a goal and to call a goaltender interference penalty on the same play by Cliff Smith in the fourth quarter. If the goalie is interfered with while trying to make the save, or the player's stupid path of attack at the goal leads to contact and interference after the goal, the goal shouldn't count. Petkoff's goal was disallowed and he got a five, a game and continuing retribution from the Goondits for the exact same thing last year. Maybe the rules changed this year to allow for more interpretation, or maybe it just depends who is reffing the game.
Waive either of those Stealth goals, preferably both, and the game doesn't hit OT. In fact, it looks more like a convincing Rock win than the tight match it actually was.
The officiating in the NLL is, at times, so frustratingly inconsistent and seemingly unaware of the rules that I seriously began to wonder how many minutes of training I would need before they would certify me to do NLL games. I'm pegging the over-under at 60 minutes, most of it being zen training to tune out the constant stream of insults coming from the benches. Anyway, I think I have a pretty good grasp of the rules, except faceoff violations. Those seem to be arbitrary, much likes pushes in the back.
Saturday's abysmal performance against the Wings also swung based on a toe in the crease and a push in the back; or rather, the Rock's chances of saving themselves from their terrible effort in the second half was thwarted by a toe. Beirnes put up a shot with a juicy rebound. Doyle reached for it and got pushed in the back forcing the toe on his
And while we're on the topic of the Philadelphia game, if the Wings allege that the ball went through a hole, why didn't the ref, in addition to reviewing the tape of the game, also check the net for a hole? I remember a Rock game before video replay when a ball went through the net, the refs missed it, the Rock bench complained, the refs checked the twine, found a hole and ruled it a goal. In the more recent case, if the ref had checked the net, found a hole and then confirmed with the video that the shot was in the vicinty of the hole, I'd have no problems with calling that a goal. Limiting himself to only the video replay clearly didn't help, and if his video angles were anything like what we got via Livestream, it wouldn't have helped anyone determine anything.
It's a thankless and tough job being an official. No doubt I would be even worse and the judgment and interpretation part, but I'd like to believe that someone out there could do a better job of memorizing the rules and actually applying them in the correct situations. </ref rant>
The next Rock game is the last home game of the regular season. It's Friday night at 7:30pm against the Buffalo Goondits. It's the send-off game for Bob 'Whipper' Watson, so it's definitely a must-see if you like giving long standing ovations to the best goalie in the history of the National Lacrosse League.
And if that's not enough, first place in the East is on the line. If the Rock win, they clinch the East. If the Rock lose they can still back their way into the division title through a few different scenarios (3 Buffalo losses and 1 Rochester loss, or 2 Buffalo losses and 1 Rock win).
The Rock can also retake first overall from the Calgary Roughnecks by winning both of their remaining games, and having Calgary lose at least one of their games to Colorado. The Rock control their own destiny in the East, but they need a little help from Colorado to clinch homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.
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