Montreal Canadiens: Top 5 Missed Calls By Referees In Game 2

#4: Corey Perry gets speared in the…. pants.

Corey Perry has a long history in the NHL of getting under the opponent’s skin. He is a difficult player to play against, not just when he is putting up points, but he likes to push the envelope himself. He is often the player doing things that aren’t quite penalties, but referees don’t really enjoy seeing, like getting right in the face of the goaltender during play, or getting a little extra push or face wash on a player in a scrum.

This also leads to all kinds of times when Perry is on the receiving end of what should definitely be a penalty, but is just ignored. There were two such blatant examples in Game 2.

One was a battle along the boards where Perry was knocked to the ice by Ryan Reaves and landed on the puck. He probably could have worked a little harder to free the puck from under himself, but he was on for a long enough shift and wanted a whistle so he could change. It’s technically not illegal to stay on a puck you were knocked onto, but a player can get a delay of game for purposely falling on a puck.

Like I said, Perry wasn’t really doing anything wrong, but he was forcing the refs to blow the play down instead of just getting off the puck.

The real problem was when Vegas Golden Knights winger William Carrier was battling to free the puck. He tried two or three times to pull the puck loose but couldn’t. He then got frustrated and clearly speared Perry between the legs with significant force.

The referee, who was close enough to Carrier that he could have tapped him on the shoulder to inform him of his penalty, instead just blew the play down and called nothing. The motion of Carrier’s stick was enough for an easy minor penalty for slashing and should have been a double minor for spearing. By definition of the rule, you don’t even have to make contact with the opponent to get a double minor penalty for spearing, and should be assessed a major penalty if contact is made.

Or, if your team is losing in the playoffs it is not a penalty at all, I guess but I didn’t see that in the rulebook.