So the Red Wings-Blue Jackets series ended with its inevitable conclusion last night, but Thursday's 6-5 Detroit win was nothing like the first three games. Columbus actually showed up for this one, finally showing the grit and fight you'd expect from a Ken Hitchcock-coached team. They rallied back from two deficits and were matching the more-talented Red Wings hit for hit and blow for blow... only to be called for too many men on the ice with about 90 seconds to go. Detroit scored on that power play and ended the game (and the series) in regulation.

Now, I want to be clear on this: it was a valid call. Fredrik Modin jumped over the boards and played the puck while Jakub Voracek was barely within spitting distance of the Columbus bench. But here's the thing. In a game that was intensely physical, and in which the two teams had combined for four power play goals already to that point, that too many men on the ice call was the only penalty of the entire third period.

The refs clearly and deliberately "put their whistles in their pockets" and "let the boys play" and all those other great cliches that represent playoff hockey, and did so with the Blue Jackets' playoff lives hanging in the balance. And then whipped those whistles back out for a chintzy penalty like that, when any number of holding, hooking, interference calls and outright muggings by both teams had been ignored.

No excuses for the Blue Jackets. They got their butts kicked for three straight games and only played competitive hockey for one, and deserved to go home.

But if the refs are going to "let the game be decided on the ice", why abandon that plan right at the end of regulation?

Either do your jobs for the entire game, or stay out of the way. Don't decide, 18 minutes and 26 seconds into a 5-5 third period, that now might be a good time to start enforcing the rulebook.