Quote:
Originally Posted by N-E-B
Ice tilt? Each team had four penalties. Pretty evenly called game.
There's no conspiracy against the Flames. The Wideman effect isn't real. Let's stop blaming the refs. The Flames could have had 0 penalties called against them tonight and they still would have lost.
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Even calls can easily by explained as a symptom of the Flames adjusting to the reality that they'll get called harder for aggressive play; this is a weak bit of apologism for the poor officiating - the criteria being different for each team doesn't need to result in a different number of penalties called: if the Flames committed 8 rule infractions versus the Jets committing 12 and both only received 4 penalties, there would be a tilt. I have a hard time believing a person could watch tonight's game and believe there wasn't a tilt.
This is not to say the penalties would've made a difference tonight - I'm saying in the case that the tilt is consistent that players would be demoralized and Backlund's penalty is symptom of this; he's a guy who averaged a minor penalty every 5 games in his career and only one every 6 games this season...