Actually, I'm pretty sure you will have some words for the officials after the non-call toward the end of Tuesday's game as Jeff Halpern tried to go after a  puck near the net. For me, though, I'm conflicted. When I  first saw the play while the game was going on, it seemed clear Halpern was mugged by Maxime Talbot and, I believe, Jarko Ruutu, and there should have been some kind of penalty. But after seeing the replay I wasn't as sure. Perhaps that isn't quite right, either. Perhaps it just dawned on me that the Lightning shouldn't have been in a situation where it needed a call to give it a chance to at the end of  a game. Maybe it is more important to worry about what the Lightning did not do than what the referees did not do.

Look, there is no doubt NHL referees are not as consistent as they need to be. And I was shaking my head like the rest of you after Saturday's game in which I believed the referees, for whatever reason, gave Tampa Bay the short end of the stick. But whining doesn't do anybody any good. It may even make the refs not give the Lightning the benefit of the doubt in the long run.

Halpern helped me come to that conclusion. Instead of moaning about the non-call Tuesday, he spoke, instead, of how he allowed himself to get held up at the blue line while following the play. Had that not happened, he said, perhaps, he is clearly in front of Talbot and Ruutu and a penalty is called, or perhaps he actually gets to the puck.

Halpern's message is a good one I will try to keep in mind.