NHL Officiating Is An Absolute Shit Show

Stop me now if you have heard this before, the NHL officiating crew has been absolutely terrible this postseason. They have been horribly inconsistent with their calls. It has become absolutely apparent during the Bruins and Lightning series.  Game 2 and Game 3 have been extremely tough to watch, not only for Bruins fans, but for Lightning fans as well.

In game 2 the Lightning scored their first goal of the game on a power play that they received because of a slash committed by Torey Krug. It might have been one of the weakest slash calls I’ve ever seen in my life, especially in the playoffs. My big thing is this: set the tone for how you are going to call the game from the very beginning. Set the threshold for what you deem as an officiating crew will be a penalty, and once you call that first penalty, you are setting the tone for the game. On that weak ass slash call, the tone was set that this was going to be a tightly officiated game… WRONG.

The refs called a terrible slashing penalty on Krug, but completely missed the slash on Marchand WHILE HE WAS ON A BREAKAWAY DOWN BY 1 IN THE FINAL MINUTES. Everybody on the ice seemed to almost slow down for a second because they thought there would be a penalty called, but play resumed like nothing was happening. Also how about the completely uncalled cross check on Pasta in the last minute with our empty net? He got hit clear as day and the refs swallowed their whistles.

Also don’t let the fact that I’m a huge Bruins fan fooled you, they also completely missed the Kevan Miller penalty. Miller boarded Brayden Point blatantly and should have be called for a major, yet the refs did nothing. They seem to only make calls when they want to.

Something has got to give, In game 3 the bruins only had one power play, and it just seemed that some calls weren’t being made in their favor. Chara took a high stick to the face and the Bruins didn’t get a call. CHARA IS 7 FT TALL, DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW HIGH YOUR STICK HAS TO BE TO HIT HIM IN THE FACE!?!?!? In the series so far the Bruins have 5 power plays and the Lighting have 12. That’s not to say they have also missed a lot of calls, but something has to give here. The refs need to be more consistent with their calls, and the Bruins need to play better 5 on 5 Hockey or we might be making tee times for next week with this beautiful weather.

-John O’Connell
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