You might be surprised to learn who the two referees in Avs/Bolts Game 4 were
Much has been made about the missed «too many men» call moments before Nazem Kadri scored the overtime winner to give the Avalanche a strangle hold on the series. Was it too many men? Was it not? That depends who you ask.
It is ironic though that the officials calling last night's game were also responsible for a number of "missed" or "bad" calls in round one of the Leafs/Tampa series. While they were not paired together for Games 6 and 7, Kelly Sutherland and Wes McCauley were responsible for questionable high sticking and interference calls against the Leafs as well as non-calls that heavily favoured the Lightning.
The call that received the most outrage was, of course, the "interference" pick that Justin Holl was called for negating John Tavares' tying goal in Game 7, which is a play we have continuously seen gone uncalled in these playoffs both before and since. It is also worth noting that Morgan Rielly scored a short time later and the Leafs lost that game by a 1-goal margin.
Jon Cooper and the Lightning had no issues with the officiating in the series against the Leafs, but now they have issues with it because they aren't getting the calls they did earlier in the playoffs. Regardless of who benefits from bad or missed calls, these playoffs have shown the NHL's fan base that the officiating is nothing if not consistently inconsistent. If the league doesn't do something to address it in the off-season, it would be shocking - especially now with the new gambling deal in place.
