Abel to Yzerman

Abel to Yzerman

Shafted?

01/04/2009 at 9:06pm EST

If the shoe was on the other foot…

That’s all I’m asking of you. Just stay objective and keep in mind the fetal position we’d all still be in if it had been a Wild goal waved off, then given back—with some fairly shady “conclusive proof”—last night.

Or don’t. It’s easy, and even fun, to watch the opposing fans get all liquored up over what they consider to be a screw job. And when a beat writer is helping to push them over that ledge? Good on ya. It’s one of the reasons I dig Michael Russo. He sees a button, and he’s ready to push.

He’s got a couple images up on his blog. Both, depending on how you construe them, seem to show Franzen’s goal from last night should have been disallowed. Here’s one of them.

image

I talked to Jacques Lemaire this morning. The league sent the Wild the “conclusive” video of the Detroit Red Wings’ feed it used to overturn referee Brad Meier’s no-goal on Franzen, and Lemaire’s mouth dropped. He said there’s nothing conclusive on there.

I’ll have a lot more on this in tomorrow’s paper. I’d say this: I didn’t cover the game, but the telling signs — Meier’s six feet away, Franzen looked at Meier wave off the goal and didn’t argue at all and the league only used Detroit’s inferior telecast for feeds. The Wild’s feed at 12 cameras and was in hi-def. The Red Wings used six and was in standard-def.

This morning we posted clips from the “inferior” feed, and there were a few angles that seemed to fairly conclusively show Franzen’s blade hit the puck below the cross bar.

Fairly conclusively. Concretely? Umm. Nope. Not in my opinion. And what’s it take to overturn a call? Concrete evidence. I didn’t expect them to overturn it, was surprised when they did, and had no intention of feeling the least bit guilty if they got it wrong.

Still don’t. Right or wrong, I’ll take the 2. Thanks. And I’ll do so while I consider the huge amount of times the Wings have been raped by Gary’s officials the last two years. And I mean absolutely blatantly violated.

So they’re fired up in Minny. Understand. But sympathy? Nope. Oh, and as for Russo’s contention that Franzen didn’t argue? There wouldn’t have been a reaction either way. One: the guy’s Swedish. Secondly? He’s seen so many Holmstrom goals called back, or Holmstrom-related goals, that nothing will surprise him.

Ahhh, well. Enjoy the reaction and a nice little ending to a pretty damn good week.

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About Abel to Yzerman

Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that.

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