Kyle Dubas' grandmother torches NHL officials for brutal calls during Saturday's Leafs/Lightning game
During their post-game media availabilities, NHL executives, coaches and players always seem apprehensive to publicly call out NHL officials for botching calls in-game for fear of facing hefty penalties in the form of significant fines. However, their family members can torch the NHL officiating publicly with complete immunity.
On Saturday night, the Leafs/Lightning game in Tampa was the scene of another slew of questionable calls, some horrendous decision-making and obvious game-management by the officials. Since Kyle Dubas, Sheldon Keefe and the Leafs players likely wouldn't be caught dead criticizing the officiating, the grandmother of GM Kyle Dubas, known as Gramma Dubie on Twitter, has no time for the NHL's horrendous officiating. On Saturday night, she let the NHL know exactly how she felt.
With the Leafs in firm control for much of the game, rather than putting the whistles away, the officials began calling everything under the sun, awarding the Lightning with 6 power plays to the Leafs' 5, and also assigning a pair of offsetting minors, where the Leafs clearly should have received power plays.
The one glaring botched call was a second period interference call on Nikita Kucherov that actually should have been a 5-minute major penalty and a game misconduct for boarding on what was a reckless and dangerous play. Here's the play in question.
Due to this botched call, Kucherov remained in the game, went on to score the game-tying goal and drew a penalty on Leafs defenseman Timothy Liljegren a short time later, which led to a Bolts PP, which they converted on to take a 3-2 lead.
We're with you, Gramma Dubie. The referees in last night's game did a borderline abysmal job and were more focused on game-management than they were actually calling the game. Shameful behaviour.
| POLL | ||
DECEMBRE 4 | 504 ANSWERS Kyle Dubas' grandmother torches NHL officials for brutal calls during Saturday's Leafs/Lightning game Are you surprised at the lack of integrity of NHL officials? | ||
| Yes | 179 | 35.5 % |
| No, it's commonplace now | 325 | 64.5 % |
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