Last night's fiasco

There's really no nice way to say this, so I won't waste words.

Last night's Washington-Pittsburgh game was the most disgusting mockery of a game that I've ever seen. As a rule, I'm thoroughly averse to conspiracy theories as they nearly always fail Occam's Razor and many other rules as well. However, for what happened last night, the simpest explanation is that the league wants Pittsburgh to win. At the very least they want to prolong the series.

After Washington dominates the first two games, suddenly they're called for six penalties in a row in the third game. The overall minors were 7-2, with Pittsburgh only getting the two. That's not the real problem; the problem is how they got them.

Pittsburgh went ahead 2-1 on Malkin's goal. The shift before the goal, Malkin and Shaone Morrisonn go into the corner after a loose puck. As they're skating there, Malkin pnuches Morrisonn in the head with his fist, right in front of the referee. Play goes on. Malkin gets the puck as Morrisonn is still reeling, gets himself into the slot, and as he's about to shoot Alex Semin lifts his stick with his. Semin gets two minutes for hooking. Malkin scores on the power play.

I saw Super Bowl XL, and I can say this was much worse. What happened on the ice last night wasn't a hockey game, it was a hatchet job by the referees. There was no way Washington could have won. The Penguins could do what they wanted, and did. Especially Malkin punched, tripped, hooked and slashed players constantly. There was not one penalty called on Washington, apart from shooting the puck into the stands, that the Penguins couldn't do at will, as often as they wanted, and never get called.

In the regular season, Mellon Arena usually boasts the most uneven playing surface in hockey. In the playoffs, it's a cliff. If the next game is called the same way, then why bother playing it at all? Just mark it up as a 5-0 Pens win.