Fighting Dirty: DET 3 - PHL 4

Wow. Philly came out FLYING in the 1st Period. Pun acknowledged, but not intended. They really did come out fast and hard. So fast and so hard that the Wings look shocked and a little rattled, especially when a stone-cold Ozzie let in a goal 17 seconds into the game. Admittedly, it was a baaaaaad turnover that led to the shot, but bad turnovers seem to be a story with us these days. This does not please me. Thankfully, after the initial surprise at a battling Leastern team wore off, the boys woke up and started playing, in spite of some of the worst non-calls ever in the history of NHL reffing. Finally, Cleary did some awesome work staying in front of the net and whacked one past Boucher at 14:08. A little over two minutes later, Buckets did some more good work and fed one to Helm who scored despite the broken nose he took early from Laperriere. Finished up the period with a scrum between the Mule and Hartnell, who apparently needed help from Pronger. 4 minutes of penalties on each side, and the period ended on a breath of relief.

Okay, you know what? Fuck the recap of the 2nd Period action. The only think worth talking about was the ridiculously atrocious reffing perpetrated by Paul Devorski and his Merry Men. Throughout the entire game, they managed to make weak calls on the Wings for (non)slashing, (non)holding, and (non)roughing, yet were unable to call Philly for charging, boarding, intent to injure, tripping, hooking, crosschecking, and ripping Pavel Datsyuk's helmet off his head TWICE.

At the end of two periods, Philly was up 2 points. Datsyuk managed to bring us within 1, but in the end we couldn't manage to tie it up.

I can't say the Wings were robbed in this game. They made a lot of sloppy plays and Ozzie looked rusty at the start. he warmed up as the game went on, but by then it was too late. So maybe we didn't deserve to win, but neither did Philly. No team deserves to win when they play so dirty it would take a nuclear decontamination chamber to clean them up.

In the end, the Flyers didn't win this game; Paul Devorski and the worst reffing in the NHL won this game.