Referee inadvertently kicks a Jets player in the face during Leafs/Jets game
The Jets/Leafs game on Thursday was certainly a rough, playoff-like affair, but the Leafs never backed down, no matter how wild the game got. There hooks, there were slashes, there were cross checks, there were elbows and there was a spirited scrap between Kyle Clifford and Brenden Dillon. In the end, the Leafs skated away with a 7-3 victory.
There were several very obvious penalties that went uncalled in the contest, which was probably of benefit to the Leafs, as strange as that sounds, because it gave the game more of an authentic playoff feel. We know that the officials tend to put the whistles away a little more in the postseason. They did just that on Thursday as well.
One particularly dangerous play nearly resulted in a player getting his face sliced open by a skate blade. The kicker? It wasn't even a player's skate.
During a scrum just before Clifford and Dillon dropped the gloves, there were a pair of officials attempting to control a scrum near the faceoff dot to the left on Leafs netminder Erik Kallgren. One of the officials was off-balance and attempting not to fall over a player's stick. As he reached down to brace a potential fall to the ice, his back leg came up and his skate boot caught a Jets defender in the face, and nearly gave him AND another official a really close shave.
Thankfully, the blade didn't catch the Jets player or the other official and everyone was able to skate away. For Toninato, it was a skate to the penalty box though, as he had just taken a charging penalty on the play. Meanwhile, in the corner, Clifford and Dillon tee'd off on one another for a couple of minutes before being ushered off the ice at the end of the third period.
| POLL | ||
1 AVRIL | 239 ANSWERS Referee inadvertently kicks a Jets player in the face during Leafs/Jets game Will the Jets even make the playoffs this season? | ||
| No | 118 | 49.4 % |
| Slim chance | 64 | 26.8 % |
| Yes | 19 | 7.9 % |
| Don't care, we beat those losers | 38 | 15.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
