Oilers Officiating Review – Game 2

Previously, I had introduced the officiating review I had undertaken for the remaining ten games of the Oilers’ season.

You can read it here, as well as my methodology and an explanation on the general principles which guided my project.

Today we’ll be looking at the next game in the series, the March 26th game against the Los Angeles Kings, a 6-4 victory for Los Angeles.

You may recall in the previous article (San Jose Sharks), there was a severe imbalance of uncalled infractions in favour of the Sharks, while the overall penalties called were more or less even.

Spoiler alert, this game gets even worse.

At the bottom of the articles I am posting all of my raw data, I welcome you to scan through it if you are interested. Also, if you have any questions regarding the process or concerns over the sample size I encourage you to click the link above to read my explanations.

The most-targeted players for each team were Clifford for the Kings and McDavid for the Oilers. Referees for the game were Mike Leggo and Ghislain Hebert.

Below are the tables and chart showing the infractions, both called and uncalled, sorted into technical and physical fouls and rated by severity.

The Kings played the kind of game we expect to see from them, engaging physically and taking penalties for fighting, hooking, holding, high-sticking and tripping. While the overall penalties came out at roughly the same ratio per uncalled infraction (14% for the Oilers, 12% for the Kings), the sheer volume of uncalled infractions in this game raises an eyebrow. We begin to ask ourselves whether the game is being well-served by balancing the penalties against each team or whether it might not be better, from the perspective of the fans, were the officials to call infractions more consistently regardless of how may went the other way? This is something we’ll revisit in our final summary of the series.

Let’s take a look at the Technical and Physical fouls, but without the level 1 (marginal) uncalled infractions, to filter out any bias and see if that brings the ratios closer to even.

Nope. In fact, while things on the technical side stayed about the same they became considerably worse on the physical side.

This would seem to support the opinion that the Kings play a “heavy, physical style” as well as provide some evidence to back up the common refrain that they are something of a “dirty” team.

You’ll also notice that the Oilers at least show up with uncalled technical infractions, yet are nearly invisible on the chart of uncalled physical infractions. This would also corroborate the oft-mentioned assertion that the Oilers are not a team that is “tough to play against”.

Interestingly, the Oilers managed nearly the same number of uncalled infractions against the Kings as they did against the Sharks previously. What stands out here is that the Kings committed nearly twice as many uncalled infractions than the Sharks.

Conclusion: the Oilers kept this game interesting, the score looking more lopsided at the end due to an empty-net goal with 33 seconds remaining. Arguably they deserved a greater number of powerplay opportunities, but given that they had four (one Kings’ penalty was a fighting major with a coinciding major to the Oilers) it is hardly surprising that the officials might have been reluctant to go any further.

Once again, questions and comments are always welcome, either in the comments section below or to me directly on twitter (@codexrex).

Raw Data