Maybe These Refs Should Go Whistle
I hate NHL officiating.
My contempt, however, is very different from that of Mighty Ducks coach Ron Wilson, who was justifiably angry after his team’s 3-2, triple-overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday afternoon-and-then-night in Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals.
Wilson was upset with specific calls and non-calls in the excruciatingly agonizing and exciting 5-1/2-hour marathon at sold-out Joe Louis Arena. But I detest NHL officiating, because of the unwritten guidelines referees seem to follow in whistling infractions during close games.
The way I see it, a penalty is a penalty is a penalty - regardless of when it occurs in the game, regardless of what might have been called previously, regardless of who is being penalized, regardless of who is being victimized, regardless of whether a team has a manpower advantage at the time, regardless of the score at the time.
That, however, is the not how the men who wear orange armbands in the NHL see it. All of the aforementioned are factors in whether they blow the whistle to call a penalty. That inconsistency tarnishes the sport, even in great playoff games such as Sunday’s 101-minute endurance test.
A hooking penalty, like the one called against Ducks defenseman J.J. Daigneault 63 seconds into the sixth period that set up Vyacheslav Kozlov’s game-winning goal, is a hooking penalty whether it happens in the game’s first shift or last.
And a slashing penalty, like the one that wasn’t called when Detroit winger Kirk Maltby whacked Ducks star Teemu Selanne in the back of the left leg late in the first overtime period, is always a slashing penalty.
That the latter was called and the former wasn’t is what particularly irked Wilson in the wake of the Ducks’ second consecutive overtime road loss, putting them in an 0-2 hole as the series shifts to Anaheim for Games 3 and 4.
In view of what was and wasn’t called by Marouelli on Sunday, Wilson had a valid point. But if everything that warranted a penalty had been called, he would not have had a legitimate beef.
A select sampling of transgressions that took place on the ice in Game 2, when they occurred and whether penalties were called:
Red Wings defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov, who delivered several crushing checks in Game 1 (including one that injured Ducks winger Ted Drury), had his helmet knocked off three times by the Ducks in Game 2. Bobby Dollas could have been called for roughing late in the first period, but the Wings already were on a power play, so it went unpunished.
After a penalty-free third period, which didn’t seem surprising at the time because it was a close game, it seemed as if Marouelli had decided to swallow his whistle.
Just when I thought I had Marouelli figured out, he changed his pattern, whistling the Ducks for too many men on the ice with 7:32 left in the fourth period. A bench minor in an overtime Stanley Cup game? Wilson was incredulous on the Ducks’ bench. If my lip-reading skills are still sharp, I think he yelled “That’s trash!”
Three minutes later, at the 4:48 mark, Maltby used his stick to temporarily knock Selanne out of the game - “with a two-handed baseball-bat swing,” Wilson fumed, that connected with Selanne’s left calf. No whistle.
Marouelli obviously figured out he had missed the slashing call - I think he took the hint when Selanne was being helped off the ice - so he quickly called Detroit defenseman Bob Rouse for holding Jari Kurri’s stick. It was an obvious makeup call, the only stick-holding penalty of many that could have been called.
On the ensuing power play, Yzerman was held by the Ducks on a counterattack, but there was no whistle, the partisan fans booing loudly.
Now you know why Wilson was livid when Daigneault was called for the hooking penalty that proved decisive in triple-overtime. And now you also know why I hate NHL officiating.