re nords habs in o t we was robbed in article apr jarvis csri toronto edu yaska eecg toronto edu yaska sankar writes paul stewart is the worst and most biased ref presently in the nhl we was robbed no patrick roy is the reason the game was lost and ron hextall is the reason quebec won i don t buy this at all roy was the reason the game was tied and that would not have been the case had dionne kept his cool roy stood on his head for the first minutes of the game when the nords were rushing from end to end kamensky s mini break after the tying goal and the first shot by young in ot were both excellent chances stopped by roy roy outplayed hextall for most of the game but roy becomes the villain and hextall the hero because roy s team didn t make full use of their opportunities whoa what you are effectively doing is implying that if a player plays really well he stores up mistakes that can be used at a later time ths is not so roy is the villain as you so succinctly put it because he allowed a very cheap goal if you think roy outplayed hextall perhaps you should get a tape of the game and watch the first minutes of the third period nhl goaltenders make some great saves if they did not they would not be in the nhl in the first place i do not expect any particular goalie to be able to make the great saves all of the time even though they are occasionally required however when it comes to a routine shot like sakic s especially at such a crucial time in a game i don t think there are any legitimate excuses hextall on the other hand had a lot of lucky bounces description of lucky bounces hextall wasn t particularly brilliant on those plays i am not arguing that hextall was brilliant i am arguing is that a relatively weak wrist shot from the outside of the circle shold not result in a goal but it was just the goal the timing stank but against an explosive team like quebec they gave them opportunity too many with a powerplay that was totally unnecessary in a one goal game with less than a minute to go there is no such thing as just the goal i have not defended dionne for taking the penalty either in fact i think it was a boneheaded move but it led to one goal only and montreal had a two goal lead my main concern is the second goal this most certainly was a team loss leclair missed his opportunities as did bellows and brunet dionne took a bad penalty damphousse and lebeau were silent carbonneau and savard were a step behind all night roy gave up the bad goal roy by no means can be singled out for this loss what you say about the skaters is absolutely true but realize that the game was effectively won you could watch any hockey game in fact you could watch any sporting event period and spend hours discussing the what if s w r t missed opportunities they are not important when the final result is decided if i get the time soon i ll watch the game again and email you a list of lucky montreal bounces and a list of quebec offensive screwups montreal was leading with a minute to go the goalie is the last line of defence and i will grant that extra attention is focussed on him sometimes without justification but roy gave up a lousy goal and a team cannot afford such a goal roy looked like a player in an industrial league on sakic s shot and hextall didn t on dionne s goal please who cares of what value is it to justify one lousy play with a totally unrelated lousy play i could do a hextall critique if you d like but if you re going to assess his performance keep in mind that he made the key saves at the key times roy is paid big money because that is his value compared to other goalies and he still is in the top for the record i did not say that roy was not one of the top goaltenders in the league in fact i agree that he is the montreal media is the quickest to heap praise and then hurl derogatory comments against the habs they are no better than uninformed fans i assume you are referring to me however i have pointed out that i think the loss can be blamed on roy i have not said he sucks nor do i think i ve made any other derogatory comments if you regard objective and informed fyi observations as derogatory i really can t help you dchhabra stpl ists ca
