Referee shows an outright abuse of power, assesses Bunting a ridiculous 10-minute misconduct
Of the great feuds in human history, there's Ali vs Frazier, Hatfields Vs McCoys, and now, Michael Bunting Vs NHL referees. The Leafs winger has had a bit of a rough stretch of late. He's been called out by his coach on multiple occasions, demoted out of the top 6 and now it seems his ability to draw penalties has been completely negated by what can only be described as a bias from referees.
If you want evidence, you need look no further than the play that occurred at the end of the second period of Sunday Night's tilt between the Leafs and Red Wings. Bunting had already been sent to the box on a fabricated embellishment call when, with the seconds ticking down, a scrum broke out. Timothy Liljegren successfully stopped Wings forward Marco Kasper from reaching Ilya Samsonov, who had covered the puck. Kasper took exception to on the play and decided to go after him. From that point, the fur started to fly as players arrived from all over the ice to join the fray.
As you can see, Bunting didn't initiate anything or do anything outside of a shove or two. He did, however, choose to have a little fun with several Wings after the scrum had dissipated.
After all was said and done, Bunting was the only player serving a 10 minute misconduct for simply moving a player's stick with his feet after that player decided to shove him.
The bias against Butning is clear as day for anyone who's been paying attention. The issue is, if this malarkey from the officials continues into the playoffs, Bunting's effectiveness against the Tampa Bay Lightning will end up being severely hindered. Bunting may have brought some of this on himself early in his career, but what we are seeing now is a massive overcorrection and one that can't continue if Bunting is to be an effective player in the post season.
| POLL | ||
AVRIL 3 | 605 ANSWERS Referee shows an outright abuse of power, assesses Bunting a ridiculous 10-minute misconduct Did the referees have sufficient reasoning to give Bunting a 10-minute misconduct? | ||
| Yes | 47 | 7.8 % |
| No | 558 | 92.2 % |
| List of polls | ||
