The Flyers have lost three straight games with their loss last night to the Thrashers 6-5 in overtime.
That game had the worse officiating I have seen in a very long time. On average you get one bad call per game, but usually it either doesn’t affect the games outcome or another bad call goes the other way and it usually evens out. This was not the case last night. What made the soft calls, the bad calls, and the no calls so bad was that it clearly affected the outcome. The no call on Gagne being pulled down by two Thrashers while he entered their zone with an empty net. The incredibly soft hooking call on Hatcher that gave the Thrashers a 6 on 3 with two minutes left in the game. The crosschecking penalty on Forsberg who was holding his stick with one hand, with his stick sticking straight up in the air. The no call on the Thrashers for punching Brashear in the back of the head and tackling him while he had control of the puck in front of the Thrashers net. I wonder who the ref’s Bookie is, that is how bad the officiating looked. It looked like they were purposely influencing the game. What a load of crap.

“You know what happens if I say the wrong thing. You know how I feel about that stuff, how I feel about going down five-on-three with a call like that. You know that stuff. You know how we feel about the non-call on Gagne.” – Ken Hitchcock.

With all that being said, the Flyers have plenty of blame to share for the loss. They played poorly in the first period being out shot 17-8. Brashear took 6 minutes in penalties the first period, but that really doesn’t bother me. Being the tough guy he is expected to have very physical play. He played better last night then he has in awhile. The first period play, giving up 4 power play goals on 11 penalties and Esche’s less then stellar performance in goal cost the Flyers the game. Because of injuries, the Thrashers started their fifth goalie of the season Michael Garnett, who last year was the backup goalie for their AHL team.
Radivojevic who was suppose to sit tonight with Savage getting the start, scored two of the Flyers goals. Derian Hatcher scored on a breakaway. Yeah that’s right, I thought I would never see that. Coming out the penalty box Hatcher somehow someway was able to beat the Thrashers defense into the zone and score on the breakaway. Handzus and Gagne scored the other two goals.

Kovalchuck, Radivojevic and Hatcher were the three stars.

Two comments I need to make about Chris Cuthbert and Glenn Healy, TSN commentators for the game.
The first about Brashear, after receiving his third minor penalty in the first period, one of those two stated quite obnoxiously that Hitchcock would sit Brashear the rest of the game. Which wasn’t the case, Brashear saw five more shifts for a couple reasons. One being he brings energy and size to the ice Atlanta has a hard time handling. The other reason was a couple of those penalties he took were rather weak.
Second they referred the Flyers several times as a one line team? Just shutdown the Forsberg line and you shutdown the Flyers. Out of the 5 goals scored, only one came from that line. Doesn’t seem like a one line team to me. That’s because they aren’t. Just because the Forsberg line is about the most dominate in the NHL right now doesn’t mean the other lines don’t contribute offensively.