Montreal Canadiens: Does the NHL Have a Penalty Problem?

During the second period of Saturday’s game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Habs took four straight penalties, one penalty swung the game squarely in Toronto’s favour, off of a Rasmus Sandin goal and a failed coach’s challenge.

Then, from some serendipitous circumstance, the second-period intermission featured Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’amour, St. Louis Blues coach Craig Berube, and Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper each calling out the officials in their respective series. It must have been pure coincidence that it was right after a period of four straight penalties for the Montreal Canadiens.

This also comes directly after the season where the NHL let go of one of their officials, Tim Peel, for announcing on a live microphone that he was searching out to give one team a penalty since that team had been the beneficiary of a power-play already.

To be specific, it was a game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Nashville Predators, where the Predators won 2-0. The only penalty in the first was to Detroit’s Adam Ernie. Then, Nashville’s Viktor Arvidsson took a penalty, the one that Peel was “fishing” for, according to the hot mic. That got the NHL into trouble.

There is this concept that has been one of many unwritten rules that the NHL has, which is the idea of compensatory penalties. It ultimately comes from a place of fear from the referees, but that place is not totally unfounded.

Being a referee is a thankless job. Do your job well, and no one notices. Do your job poorly, and everything is your fault and insults are lobbed from left, right, and centre. No referee wants to be the one that called a tripping penalty that led to the game-winning powerplay goal, only for replays later showing that he fell rather than got tripped.

That responsibility is magnified in the playoffs, where the importance of each game is ten-fold. If one team gets a large advantage in the penalty department, then everyone is going to blame the referees. It gets even worse, as the playoffs have a history of rough stuff, and the refs have a reputation for whistle swallowing.

For example, in Game 1 of the Toronto Maple Leafs – Montreal Canadiens series, each team had the one major for the fight between Nick Foligno and Corey Perry, and Toronto had five minor penalties to Montreal’s four minors. That is pretty even. Not to say that any of those plays don’t deserve getting penalties, since some games are generally going to be even in the penalty department. But all of them?

The problem is that now there are decades of precedent of referees evening the penalties, and you have players, coaches, general managers, and owners who feel entitled to compensatory penalties. And what you get is complaining after games like Game 2 of the Toronto – Montreal series, where Montreal had six minor penalties to Toronto’s one, outside of those last-minute shenanigans.

Looking at the penalty minutes per game in the NHL, the only games where one team has more than one powerplay more than the other team is Game 4 of the Pittsburgh (6 penalties) – New York (2 penalties) series, Game 1 of the Washington (4) – Boston (1) series, Game 2 of the Washington (6) – Boston (8) series, Game 2 of the Carolina (9) – Nashville (5) series, Game 3 of the Carolina (7) – Nashville (3) series,  Game 4 of the Carolina (5) – Nashville (3) series and Game 3 of the Las Vegas (2) – Minnesota (5) series. That is eight games out of 28 games so far played in the playoffs.

Is it possible that most of the games, 72%, were played almost completely even when it comes to the dirty stuff? Maybe, but that is a big chunk of games for maybe. It would be impossible to know unless someone saw every penalty that was taken, and determined whether they were warranted or not. And then, there is the question of subjectivity and loose interpretation of the rules. I mean, how many times have you seen about five crosschecks after every whistle?

Of those games previously mentioned, four of the eight games were won by the team that took fewer penalties. But again, the games where the referee’s penalty calls did not affect the outcome are overshadowed by the ones that are directly affected by penalties.

And there is something to be said about the quality of the team. If the team is the best, they should be able to kill extra penalties and take the extra opportunities when they come.  It would be tough to argue that the Montreal Canadiens would have definitely won Game 2 if there were fewer penalties, or if there was a call on that questionable non-call on the questionable charge near the end of the second period.

It is a question of how distilled you want your hockey. The puritans would want the game played like a blank slate, every interaction being totally independent of what happened before in the game. It would probably mean an uptick of penalty calls, and far more lopsided games penalty-wise. Or, there are also people that wish to continue the way it is, and keep the unwritten rules in place.

There is no correct answer. Something that is unwritten and somewhat written into the DNA of the game is not an easy fix, and it might not need to be. There are always going to be controversies in everything. It is not an easy choice. It would be nice if the referees were not blamed for the outcomes of games, but there will always be games like the San Jose vs. Las Vegas Game 7 two years ago, where San Jose scored four straight goals in one powerplay on a questionable call.

It is just something that fans are going to have to live with, but it would be nice to have the game called as it’s played, not as scared to make a mistake and be lambasted for it.