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

#3: Refs blows whistle for no reason, ignored cross check on Corey Perry.

Another play involving Corey Perry should have resulted in a power play opportunity for the Canadiens, or at the very least an opportunity to put a loose puck in the net.

Perry was banging away at a rebound in front of the net as he usually does. The puck was stopped by Marc-Andre Fleury but sat loose in front of Fleury’s pad.

The referee, who either forgot how to stop or how to accelerate on skates, slowly drifted towards the net with an eight foot wide gap between his skates and his whistle in his mouth. As the puck sat loose, the referee, who took his sweet time getting to the net, blew the play down because he couldn’t see the puck. The puck squirted loose to Fleury’s left and it appeared Eric Staal was going to get to it first, with the Golden Knights goaltender unaware where the puck ended up.

A great scoring chance was taken away by lazy officiating, and a power play opportunity was ignored when Shea Theodore took Perry out of the play by delivering a severe cross check to the back that dropped the Habs winger to the ice.

It is impossible to guess what would have happened if the whistle didn’t blow. What is undeniable here is that the referee had plenty of time to get to the net but just slowly drifted towards the goal like he was out for a leisurely skate on the Rideau Canal.