Atrocious officiating leads to a wild stat for the Leafs in Game 2
Sorry, I tried to start writing this article earlier but Francois St. Laurent called a delay of game penalty on me before I could. Ok, it may have been a bad joke, but nothing is worse than the officiating for Game 2 between the Leafs and Bolts. That was the real joke.
The Leafs were shorthanded a ridiculous 7 times during Wednesday night's shambolic display of officiating. So much for the whistles going away in the playoffs, am I right?
Tampa, to their credit, took full advantage, going 3-7 on the PP. The real issue was that the Leafs didn't take advantage on their own powerplays. If they had, the game would have been much more competitive. Still, it's hard to look at a game where your team is shorthanded 7 times and come away with they feeling that the officiating was anywhere near fair.
Being short handed 7 times in one game hasn't happened to the Leafs in a long time. In fact, it hasn't happened in 138 games! Not since January 28, 2021 against the Edmonton Oilers have the Leafs had to kill 7 penalties in a game. The Leafs managed a 4-3 win in that game, however.
For a playoff game to end with that many PP opportunities for one team is borderline ridiculous. Now, I'm not saying that there were not infractions committed on each of the Leafs penalties, because by the rulebook, they deserved them. The problem is that the rules don't necessarily apply in the playoffs. We saw Tampa playing "playoff style" hockey all game without getting called. Holding up Leafs players, getting chippy after whistles and leaving their feet on hits constantly. The refs had no shortage of opportunities to call an even game and simply didn't. That's whats infuriating about this one.
Games 3 and 4 in Tampa will likely be the ones that end that up deciding the series. The Leafs need to be a more disciplined group than they were on Wednesday if they plan to win. There is no point in hoping for a well officiated game to help them out. They have to find a way to make it work with or without the whistles being put away.
Since the Bolts were able to split the two Toronto games with one win apiece, that means the Lightning now own home ice advantage, with the Leafs needing to win one in Tampa to regain the advantage.
| POLL | ||
MAI 5 | 897 ANSWERS Atrocious officiating leads to a wild stat for the Leafs in Game 2 On a scale of 1-10, how bad was the officiating in Game 2? (1 being perfect and 10 being completely one-sided) | ||
| 1 | 43 | 4.8 % |
| 2-4 | 61 | 6.8 % |
| 5-8 | 342 | 38.1 % |
| 9-10 | 451 | 50.3 % |
| List of polls | ||
