bad passes by the Stars all over that PP... good look for the Sharks

much more that the 1st.  Its fast paced, back and forth, lots of opportunities for both teams.

Who do you suggest we replace him with, genius? Obviously you're very knowledgeable in the ways of NHL coaching. So either pipe up with some candidates, and some legitimate reasons why he needs to be fired, or just pipe down.

Was the puck still loose when Marleau poked it home? Yes.

Does it really matter since Dan Van Massenhoven decided he lost sight of the puck prior to it being pulled into a shooting position and shot into the net?

No.

Happens to every team about 4 or 5 times during the course of the season. I distinctly remember it happening to Dallas and Brenden Morrow against the Sharks in OT early in 2005-06. I also remember Patty Marleau winning the game a few minutes later on a breakaway. That's hockey sometimes.

Point is on a play like this, it doesn't necessarily matter when the whistle is blown. The only thing that matters is when the ref decides he's lost sight of the puck and it's time to blow the play dead. And since it's humanly impossible to blow the play dead at the EXACT instant the ref decides to blow the play dead, you sometimes have instances like tonight  where the puck is still loose when the ref blows the play dead.

Furthermore, there's no iron-clad guarantee San Jose would have gone on to win the game had that goal been allowed. Certainly their chances of winning would have gone up had they been up 2-0 at the end of the first period.

But as we all know in hockey, you're going to approach the game differently being down 2-0 than being down 1-0 as the Stars were entering the third.

"We might be looking at 3-1 in our favor if these refs weren't so piss poor."

Well, since both teams have only played three games in this series, it's statistically impossible for either team to be up 3-1.

"How frustrating is it to be the clearly better team and walk away with these losses."

Clearly the better team?

You mean the one that has been outscored 7-1 in this series from the third period on?

Look, I can understand your frustration with being down 3-0 in a series against at a team that, on paper, you should matchup very well with. I thought the same thing two years ago when a 2nd seeded Stars team lost to Colorado in the first round in five games and was down 3-0 after two OT losses.

But I didn't blame it on the officiating. At the end, I simply took the Bill Parcells approach that the Stars were what they were in the playoffs that year. Colorado made the plays and the Stars did not. Thus, the Avs deserved to advance and the Stars deserved to go golfing.

And while I'm on the topic of philosophical coaches, the great Tom Landry once said that good teams don't put themselves into a position where officiating can beat them. To that end, the Sharks shouldn't be afraid to score more than two goals in a game.

Of course, if deluding yourself into thinking that terrible officiating is the primary reason your team is down 3-0 go ahead and delude to your heart's content.