`WHERE WERE THE OFFICIALS?'
Referees missing too many obvious calls, especially where star players are involved
What does Auston Matthews have to do these days to draw a penalty?
Fall down and writhe around on the ice like some soccer player who's just been shot? Lose a tooth? Lose blood? Break a bone?
Whatever he has been doing up until this point is clearly not enough. And it's starting to frustrate the Toronto Maple Leafs star centre, who let the refs have it on Thursday after being on the receiving end of a non-call in a 5-4 overtime loss to the Arizona Coyotes.
“I felt what I felt,” Matthews said after the loss. “There's nothing really that I can change now.”
Matthews had been skating back toward a loose puck in overtime, when he got tangled up with Arizona's Jakob Chychrun along the boards. Chychrun grabbed Matthews' arm and held onto his stick, causing the Leafs forward to lose his balance and slow down. It should have been a penalty. It could have been two of them. Except, no call was made on the play, resulting in a two-on-one break for the Coyotes, with Chychrun scoring the game-winner.
“Was that a penalty at the one-minute mark? Yeah. Was it a penalty at the 59-minute mark? Yeah,” said retired NHL official Bryan Lewis. “But I'm an expert who's seen five different replays at home. My question is where were the officials? Were they blocked out? Why did four eyes miss it?”
It's a question that is getting asked a lot these days.
On the same night when referees put away their whistles in Toronto, on-ice officials allowed Nazem Kadri to get hooked in the dying minutes of a tied game between Colorado and Carolina, which directly led to the Hurricanes scoring the game-winning goal seconds later. A day earlier, referees missed — or chose to ignore — a blatant hook from Washington's Alex Ovechkin on Edmonton's Zach Hyman, which not only prevented an empty-net goal from the Oilers, but allowed the Capitals to send the game to overtime with a goal of their own.
Add them together and it appears as though the league has a refereeing problem. At the very least, these incidents seem to indicate that referees are still reluctant in making calls late in games that could impact the result, especially where star players are involved.
“It's that time of year where you have two or three incidents that bring the officiating to the forefront,” said Lewis. “The mandate given is that if it's a clear-cut penalty given at the one-minute mark, then it's a penalty at the 59-minute mark. The problem is that as the season winds down, the pressure gets turned up on everybody.
“I don't care what league you're in — you don't want you to call marginal penalties.”
What's the definition of a marginal penalty? According to Lewis, it's a judgment call. As much as fans and players might say they want the rule book called exactly as it's written, hockey is a contact sport that allows for some leeway.
It's not like this is the early 2000s anymore, when Mario Lemieux was threatening to retire because the league wasn't doing enough to protect its stars. For the most part, penalties are being called. And based on the league leaders in drawn penalties, which resembles the roster for the All-star Game, it's the right kind of players who are getting most of the calls.
Connor Mcdavid has drawn 40 penalties this year — most in the NHL. Nathan Mackinnon is tied with Kirill Kaprizov for fifth overall with 29 drawn-penalties; Kadri has drawn 28, Mikko Rantanen has drawn 26, Leon Draisaitl has drawn 21.
In fact, seven of the top 10 scorers are ranked in the top 30.
So how is it that Matthews, who leads the league in goals and is a favourite to win the
Hart Trophy as MVP, has drawn only seven penalties? How is it that 351 other players have drawn more penalties this season?
Maybe he should ask Michael Bunting, who ranks third overall with 33 drawn penalties. That is more than Matthews, Mitch Marner (10) and William Nylander (9) have combined, which doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about it.
Even stranger is that Toronto ranks second-last in the league in drawing penalties.
“These players have the puck more often,” said Lewis. “There's a greater chance them being tripped or hooked. But falling down doesn't mean the referee's arm should go up.”
It shouldn't. But it does. And while Matthews is a target, at
6-3 and 205 pounds, he's also a rather big target. That size could be working against him in the way that it once did for Lemieux, who spent the latter part of his career threatening to retire because he was tired of towing around defenders, whose sticks were constantly lodged around his midsection.
“It got to the point where it was almost unplayable out there the last few years,” Lemieux said in 2002. “It's to the point where it's not hockey anymore.”
A year ago, Mcdavid was saying something similar after he failed to draw a single penalty in 121 shifts over four games against Winnipeg in the first round of the playoffs. A year earlier, he drew one penalty in four playoff games against Chicago.
“You obviously want to call the rule book, that's what it's there for,” Mcdavid told reporters before the start of the season.
“If you call each and every one, there will be lots of penalties, but if there's lots of penalties that's just the way it is. The rule book is there for a reason and you want it called with integrity.”
Maybe it's also time for Matthews to speak up and complain. Barring that, maybe he should take a page out of Bunting's playbook and fall down more.