NHL officials screw the Leafs twice in the same period, send Matthews, Bunting to the box on ridiculous calls
With the Edmonton Oilers in town to take on the Leafs in a grudge match from nearly 2 weeks ago, fans in attendance and those tuning in from home hoped to see a hard-fought, high-octane battle between the Atlantic and Pacific Division powerhouses. Unfortunately, in the second period, the referees took over and made their presence felt in the form of two brutal penalty calls on Auston Matthews and Michael Bunting, which negated what would have been a pair of powerplays for the Leafs.
On the first play, Matthews was standing just inside the blueline, colliding with Connor McDavid in what appears to be incidental contact that McDavid got the worst of. In the clip below, you'll see McDavid cutting towards Matthews, with the two bumping hips. Matthews isn't even looking at McDavid at the point of contact, nor after the contact even happens. No arm went up on the play, so McDavid got up and gave Matthews a shove and chopped the stick out of his hands. Once the slash occurred, the arm went up, but the officials decided to send them both to the box.
Next, on the Bunting play, Bunting was grinding for position with Oilers forward Ryan McLeod. The two exchanged shoves, but the officials did not raise an arm to indicate that a penalty was on the way. As the play was headed deep into the Oilers' defensive zone, Bunting turned on the jets to try to pursue the puck when McLeod edged him off and rocked him against the boards away from the puck - a clear interference infraction. The problem was, the officials also sent Bunting off, negating a second Leafs powerplay and forcing another 4-on-4.
I'm running out of words to express how incompetent the officials have been this year. What's worse is that the NHL seems to have no interest in addressing the problem or even admitting that there is a problem at all. Look - I'm fine if they wanted to call Matthews for interference on McDavid, even if the contact looked mostly incidental and caused by McDavid cutting in so hard. But the problem I have with the play is that no arm went up. The officials can't simply decide to make a call after the fact once they allowed the play to continue without the arm going up. On the Bunting play, however, the officials were entirely out to lunch. That was a reputation call if I've ever seen one and it was pathetic.
| POLL | ||
11 MARS | 652 ANSWERS NHL officials screw the Leafs twice in the same period, send Matthews, Bunting to the box on ridiculous calls Did Matthews or Bunting deserve a penalty on either of these two plays? | ||
| Yes, they both did | 89 | 13.7 % |
| No, they both didn't | 426 | 65.3 % |
| Bunting did, Matthews didn't | 78 | 12 % |
| Matthews did, Bunting didn't | 59 | 9 % |
| List of polls | ||
