Final Thoughts on Burrows - Auger and Daily Round-Up

Yesterday, I posted my thoughts about Alexandre Burrows and it appears that as far as the NHL is concerned, it is a done deal with a slap on the wrist for Burrows and no action for any wrong doing for Auger, especially since it was business as usual for him working a game last night.

Looking back at my game story from Monday that I was writing as the game progressed, I noted the following comments before the game ending meltdown was ever on the horizon.

• "David Legwand was called for a phantom hooking call"
• "Vancouver was the beneficiary of another questionable call as Ryan Kessler bumped Goalie Dan Ellis after a save and Ellis was called for roughing on the face wash payback."
• "At 3:36 in the third period another questionable call was made when Alexander Burrows was called for diving after he got tangled up with Dan Hamhuis battling for the puck in the corner."
• "More weirdness from the officials occurred at 6:15 when Francis Bouillon was called for delay of game when he was unable to stop from cruising into the net and he dislodged the Predator net."
• "At 9:21 Willie Mitchel was called for interference on a very touchy play that was was not clearly apparent on replay."
• "Ryan Jones was called for hooking with 4:49 remaining in one of the more legitimate penalties of the evening. Things returned to the status quo for poor officiating when Alexander Burrows was called for interference on the ensuing face off when he had incidental contact with Joel Ward."
  

In the Storylines section I also noted the following as one of the top three of the game:

"Craziness from the Guys in the Striped Shirts... As you can tell from reading the above synopsis, the officiating was not palatable to the home crowd or any innocent bystanders. The Canucks were whistled for nine penalties including the game ending misconduct to Alexander Burrows while the Preds were called for four penalties, three of which should not have been called."

Clearly, the entire game was one where incidental contact and phantom penalties were the order of the day. Other players on both team had legitimate beefs too with the officiating. It's too bad that Burrows felt more "special" than the others and raised such a big stink over a poorly officiated game.

Out of the many words written on the subject I found the following articles to be better than most.

Michelle Kenneth calls "Bullsh--" on the Auger side of the story.

Adrian Dater refers to the Auger-Burrows conversation as "fatherly advice". I always love a conspiracy theory.

Puck Daddy's post has caused some Canadians to want to boycott Yahoo.

Elliotte Friedman suggests that an apology fro Burrows might help the Canucks in the long run. That is probably not a bad idea. He also mentions that proper channels would have gone a lot further at preventing what allegedly occurred during the game.

Bob McKenzie has another good post in followup to the original that we linked yesterday.

Matt at View from My Seats has a transcript of the discussion with Colin Campbell.

In Pred Nation...


The unknown Predator's "team building" activity from yesterday turned out to be Curling at the Garrison Curling Club in Calgary. Curling is something you don't hear much about in these parts but is very popular in Canada and seems to reach a peak in discussions every four years in the US when the competition shows up on Olympic broadcasts.

Final results with a fuzzy picture come from @NHLPredsInsider: O'Reilly, Rinne, Weber and Sullivan take the crown.










Jim Diamond reports that Ryan Ellis and Taylor Beck have been named to play in the OHL All-Star game that will be held on February 3rd in Kingston, Ontario.

John Glennon discusses the Predators two goalie situation and indicated that neither will probably be traded before the trade deadline. He also has an attendance update that indicates that the Preds may have borrowed Larry Schmittou's pencil that he used during the 1980's that helped the Nashville Sounds win the national minor league attendance derby each year. John also talks about the curling activity at Inside Predators.

Dirk at On The Forecheck has the audio of John Glennon's visit to the Thom Abraham Show. I'm really thankful that Dirk has the inside track on these clips because I would miss them otherwise.

Admirals Short Shifts puts out the help wanted sign on behalf of Lane Lambert as the Ads roster is growing thin. They also touch on the 7-2 blistering they took from the Chicago Wolves in a rare mid week day game yesterday.

Eric LaForge has a complementary article about the Preds at Bleacher Report.

I stumbled across a post by "Tax Girl" that appears to like to write about taxes which is odd in itself. She comments on a bunch of hearsay evidence from the media about the Predators.

Around the NHL...

The Ottawa Senators went for a skate in Central Park. Here are some pics.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass