By JIMMY D / Final bad call goes for Philly | Jimmy's archive

It was a series that had Hab fans whining over hit goal posts and had Flyer fans whining about biased officiating.

A series that ended surprisingly in five games sure seemed to have plenty of both.
Fitting perhaps that the decisive phantom call by a ref in this series happened in Game 4 when Steve Begin was called for a questionable late hit. And fitting that Philly scored the series clincher a few seconds after Guillaume Latendresse rang a shot off the cross bar.

Lucky bounces? Hab choke? Emerging Flyers simply bigger and better than the Habs?

For the record, Jimmy called a Hab sweep in this series after watching them dominate the Flyers several times during the year. And really, if not for the questionable late penalty on Mike Richards in Game 1 and the Alexei Kovalev goal (after Jeff Carter’s’ stick exploded on the faceoff), this was a rare five-game sweep.

Whatever the case, it’s a Philly-Pitt final in the East and Dallas-Detroit in the West. Everyone who stacked up on Habs and Sharks in their playoff pools are now toast. Expect high-scoring games to continue in the East final where the Flyers will counter-attack against a suspect Penguin blueline and Pitt will punish each and every Flyer penalty with a power-play goal.

In the West, Jimmy sees low-scoring games. Prediction: Wings and Penguins each in six.

Scouting the Worlds

As a serious hockey poolie, the World Hockey Championships here in Halifax is a rare chance for keeper league gurus to scout players and to find valuable prospects for next year’s draft. And there are plenty of players in evolving hockey markets like Slovenia and Latvia who know scouts are watching and are working for training camp invitations and contracts.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to watch the big names, because you know what you are getting. It’s the lesser names on squads like the USA, Finland, Sweden and the prospects – or older players on the cusp of coming across to try the NHL – where you should be focusing your efforts.

Jimmy was impressed with Latvia’s Mikelis Redlihs, a small, quick forward who reminded him of Andy McDonald of the Blues. He is just 24 and was a point-per-game player for Metallurg Zlhobin of the Belarus League.

And keep an eye on players in Quebec City such as Sweden’s Kenny Jonsson and Russia’s Alexei Morozov, skilled former NHLers who could be lured back with a contract offer. Keep those players on your fantasy pool radar and watch the transaction wire in the coming weeks to see if any of the players you saw here sign contracts.

After watching a few games live, Jimmy is already to anoint the Canadians as champs. The rest of the teams don’t have the talent or size to hang with this group, although Finland appears to have the best shot at giving the Canadians a game.

The Americans are young and will be a force two years from now. But they could only generate scoring against Slovenia on the power play where Phil Kessel scored a hattrick of nearly identical goals.

Jimmy predicts an 8-1 Canada win tonight with the Nash-Heatley-Getzlaf line dominating throughout. If Canada takes a lot of penalties, call it 7-3.

Speaking of strange officiating, the crew in the Canada-Latvia game Sunday, where Jimmy was on hand with both little Jimmys, got a major call right when Los Angeles King ruffian Raitis Ivanans stuck Ryan Getzlaf with a stick jab.
The pair don’t like each other from the NHL regular season, where the Kings and Ducks meet eight times annually. Ivanans got five and a game for his attempted spear.

But in the late game between Slovenia and the USA, the refs made a weird call when Keith Ballard tried to take Anze Kopitar’s head off in the first period.
It was charging, boarding, elbowing mixed up with a nasty attempt to take out Slovenia’s lone NHL talent and was five-and-a-game by NHL standards.

And if you are wearing a Flyers jersey, it was probably good for a 15-game suspension. But the ref gave a minor and a 10-minute misconduct, which perplexed the Americans and drew hoots and whistles of derision from the chanting Slovenian contingent.

Anyone who hasn’t been to a game should try to get to one involving the European teams. They bring cheering contingents of rabid fans and liven the atmosphere like nothing you have seen before.

And they know their hockey better than many alleged experts on this side of the pond.

Stay busy and stay lucky.

Jimmy D
jpoole@herald.ca