#if enough of them go uncalled then you're just blowing a whistle to blow a whistle

[the-physicality]

honestly despite some of the lows this season the merc really have spoiled me. on the after time out plays, on inbounding, on the post guard connections, the dt to bg connection

[frasermints]

I did think (wrongly, apparently!) you meant playoffs, which is across the board terrible officiating. You're right that I couldn't say who gets away with more in the regular season, but I do know that when it comes to injuries resulting from dirty hits, they don't get suspended enough in post-season for any team. I agree Matthews isn't an angel, but how many times does an opponent injure him and nothing comes from it? Nylander too, and like, look at how beat up Draisaitl and Ekblad get every single season. None of them play clean, but they all suffer from the lack of integrity in officiating as much as they benefit. You yourself said that in your post, so we agree there too, I just think it's oversimplifying a serious issue to chalk it all up to bias for specific stars on specific teams. I think the issue is wider than that, but maybe that wasn't your intention and I misunderstood.

nah and you're good. playoffs officiating is dogshit and like. i do NOT envy them at all. i wouldn't want to officiate a regular season game let alone a first round playoffs game.

i think it may be an oversimplification, but there are legitimate trends of nhl stars not receiving penalties that they should. i think the issue with auston is that he doesn't necessarily intend to injure? and he's been very open about that, he doesn't engage with fights he tells his locker room he doesn't like fighting etc, but he's absolutely a target for other teams. but he absolutely participates in undisciplined behavior (hooking slashing holding are his worst i've noticed) like they're going out of style

willy too. people know he's a threat so they go after him, and he i have noticed doesn't necessarily go for undisciplined penalties as much but he does hook and trip quite often and it doesn't get called as much as it should. probably about a third (if i had the time to go back and watch games i would but unfortunately a man has a busy schedule here for the next week, depending on what next week looks like i'll get back to you) of willy's penalties don't get called in the regular season

which, like i said in the last anon, it can absolutely be chalked up to the four officials just flat out not being able to pay attention to ten people all at once. and only refs can call penalties yadda yadda yadda, linespeople literally aren't allowed to blow the whistle for undisciplined penalties and they're only allowed to snitch after the whistle has been blown, but like. god damn there's no way they're not seeing that shit and just ignoring it.

and yeah you're right. it was especially egregious during the playoffs when aus took that suspected midbody (?) injury and it went uncalled. and i mean, aus doesn't get injured nearly as much as our d does, and i feel like that almost doesn't get called as much as it should to the same if not to a worse degree. how many times did mccabe bleed all over himself and the worst the opposition got was a two minute minor? how many times was calle out for 5+ games after getting charged and the opposition didn't get a call? how many times was Iily hit in the head and dragged off the ice and no one said anything?

i think if we're going to argue that there isn't a leafs bias there are other places to look. i think that you have a valid argument somewhere if you want to try and make one, but it isn't wrt the stars. it's wrt the d core

and like there is a much more obvious intent to injure (maybe not even injure? maybe subdue? but i'm gonna go with injure i personally think they're full of goons like you can't have evander kane and corey perry on your team without admitting that there is intent to injure there) with the oilers stars. they're a MUCH more physical team than the leafs are. the more recent stars the leafs have picked up (domi) and the ones they're developing (knies) are reffed fairly in my opinion, so it kind of evens out. but with the oilers, their physicality from what i've seen doesn't (necessarily). if i watched more than like 15 regular season oilers games a year i'd be able to give better specific commentary but unfortunately i am a bad oilers spectator