DJ Smith rips into the NHL's officials after a brutal game.

In spite of picking up just their 9th win of the season on Sunday night there was not a very celebratory mood surrounding the Ottawa Senators following the game, and I suspect that the blame for this rests entirely on the officiating crew that oversaw that game.

There's no question that the officiating was poor in this one. By the time it was all said and done the Senators has just 2 power plays to their name as opposed to the 8 that were given to the Calgary Flames, and things got so bad that I even noticed fans from Calgary pointing out just how poorly officiated this game was. Criticism from fans is one thing but you know you've probably crossed a line when an National Hockey League head coach goes off on the officiating crew following the game. 

That is exactly what happened on Sunday night when Ottawa Senators head coach DJ Smith gave the NHL officiating crew a piece of his mind, this in spite of the fact that his team walked away with a 4 - 3 victory. Smith was noticeably angry following the game and he was even nice enough to pull down his mask to give us a chance at reading his lips. We won't share the words that we were able to pick up on here, but needless to say Smith wasn't happy in the least.

It would be impossible to know which of the calls it was that set Smith off, but if I had to speculate I would guess it was the embellishment call against rookie Tim Stutzle during the game's overtime period. Stutzle had what looked like a good scoring chance when he was hauled down by Flames defenseman Rasmus Andersson who got his stick tangled up in Stutzle's feet. The officials called a penalty on Andersson for tripping but much to the surprise of the Senators and Stutzle he was also hit with an embellishment call, this after crashing hard into the boards.

Here's the replay of that incident:

And another angle:

Smith no doubt was full aware that his post game antics could result in a fine, but despite that it appears he felt it was worth it to let the officials just how poor of a job they had done on Sunday night. 

For those of you who are curious Eric Furlatt and Kendrick Nicholson were the referees in this one while Steve Barton and Kiel Murchison were the linesmen.