A few weeks ago I wrote a fun little blog about how you can hate the St. Louis Blues. Well, we don’t need any help anymore. This team is as hateable as they come.
I hate being this guy. I hate the guy who pisses and moans about the officiating after every loss. I hate the fans that yell incredibly unoriginal lines like “Hey ref get off your knees you’re blowing the game!!”. All that being said, last nights NHL officiating crew deserve every bit of criticism.
So this was the first penalty received by the Bruins. Marchand skates towards Binnington, who is bobbling the puck, and gives a poke at it. No harm done. That happens every single night on every single shot at your local beer league game and the only thing that happens is everyone lines up for the next faceoff. Well buddy in the stripes couldn’t wait to call a fucking slash on that play. Puke. Maybe he saw Parayko swing his stick like a baseball bat down on Marchand’s wrist and got the players confused. Classic mix up.
Here’s a beautiful hockey play by Barbashev. Shoulder to head. He doesn’t extend high or anything but the NHL wants to get these hits out of the game. We’ve heard that phrase a million times the last few years. It’s too bad the referee was 7ft away from this hit and missed it.
Normally I wouldn’t even reference this hit. It’s borderline. Sanford is built like a tree and Krug is more like a fern, so it’s nearly impossible for head contact to be unavoidable. However, after the Johansson hit, I’m not sure how this hit goes uncalled. Again, Krug had the puck, I’m not sure what else the refs are looking at where they would have missed this.
This one nearly gave me an aneurysm. The referee is staring at Acciari. He’s right fucking there. That’s as clear a trip/slewfoot as they come. What are we doing here? Bozark turns back tot he ref and puts his palms up immediately only to realize “holy shit I just got away with that”. Whatever. At least it didn’t immediately lead to the game winning goal. Oh wait…..
The NHL officiating has been a disaster all postseason. Bruce Cassidy called last night a “black eye” for the league. That black eye will be paired with the hip pointer the league suffered when a puck hit the netting in game 4 of the Columbus/Boston series that again lead directly to a goal, as well as the C4/C5 spinal injury from the “crosscheck” during game 7 in the San Jose/Vegas series that saw Vegas get eliminated in large part due to that call.
PS: Barbashev is having a hearing for the hit on Johansson. That’s all well and good, but suspending a 4th liner won’t help the Bruins. Calling penalties in real time and punishing the team for those penalties will. Instead, they get rewarded because their shitbag coach whined about the penalty differential after game 3. Normally, coaches tell their players to stop taking undisciplined penalties. Barube decided to publicly criticize the league for it. I suppose that was the right route to take. Works all the time in the NBA, sad to see it worked here.
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