The Oilers against the Refs

Now that we’ve all had some time to process, and hopefully decompress from, last night’s OT loss to the Ducks, it’s time to turn our attention to what has become an ongoing problem this postseason – the officiating.

It’s been bad in all series (see: Crosby, headshot), but for some reason seems especially picky in games involving the Oilers.

In the first round, the Oilers had a measly 16 power play opportunities to the Sharks’ 26. That’s a pretty big imbalance, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that officiating was biased one way or the other. Game 4, the 7-0 drubbing at the hands of the Sharks was incredibly undisciplined by the Oilers – they took 8 minor penalties to the Sharks 4. Looking at that game as a bit of an outlier, that leaves the Oilers with 12 PPs in 5 games, and the Sharks with 18. There was maybe some young team bias in that round (as has happened with other young playoff teams in previous years), but other than a few egregious misses it wasn’t really that unbalanced.

This round has felt much the same – obvious missed calls at times, weak penalties at other times. The thing about it is this: both teams have the same refs, and because fans of a team are looking for certain results it’s likely that there’s a perceived bias in what’s being called (or not called, as it were). Last night was no exception.

Oilers 3, Refs 3, Ducks 1

After a first period where the Oilers were up 2-0, the Ducks came storming back on two controversial goals (and one good goal), before ultimately defeating the Oilers in overtime on another sort-of controversy.

On the first Ducks goal, Corey Perry interfered with Cam Talbot. It went uncalled, but the Oilers challenged the goal (and lost. The justification for the call was that the contact was incidental outside the crease. You be the judge.

How is Talbot supposed to use the blocker here? pic.twitter.com/UL9JdEOdk2

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 4, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The next Ducks goal was marginally offside, but because the Oilers lost the challenge on the previous one, they were unable to challenge that call.

The third goal was the only controversy-free goal for the Ducks, and it was buried by Ryan Getzlaf (who everyone seems to hate, but who had a monster of a game).

The OT winner was another controversial score, as there had been a signal for icing which was then waved off by the other linesman.

Here’s the video, in case you haven’t (somehow) seen it.

Oilers Twitter blew up with cries for more consistent officiating, and maybe rightfully so. The fact of the matter is that the officials don’t answer to the fans (or the team), but to the league. The NHL seems fairly unconcerned with consistency (again, see: Crosby, headshots), and the fans are left questioning the decisions they see on the ice.

In Conclusion…

I asked my dad, who knows more about hockey than I ever will, what he thought. (The emphasis is mine)

Oilers and Oiler fans may have an issue with the goal that was allowed after review. That decision could have gone either way from what I saw, and maybe, just maybe, the refs had a view of it that the rest of us didn’t have that confirmed their decision. If that’s the case, there could be a debate as to whether whatever views the refs have should also be shown to everyone else. The other side of that argument is if that were to happen, what would fans have to bellyache about? Best leave well enough alone, methinks. There has to be some controversy over decisions made by officials during a sporting event. Part of the mystique and all that.

The officiating didn’t cost the Oilers the game. If Oiler fans want to gripe, they should be griping about the play of their team. After being in control and being up 2-0 at the end of the 1^stperiod, they chose to watch Getzlaf put his team on his back and totally dominate the second period. They were outshot 21-5 and outscored 3-0; that was the real difference in the game, not some silly notion of poor officiating. Oh, and Mr. Talbot, as good as he has been, I think should have made the save last night on the winning goal, just as he should have made the save on the 4^th goal in game 3. Last night, while it was a really good shot, set up on a really good play by Getzlaf (again), there was no screen or anything else. That puck has to be stopped if you want your team to advance. If he had made those two saves who knows where the series would be now. Maybe only one team would be going back to Anaheim and the Oilers would be getting ready for the next opponent.

That’s what I saw. You can quote me if you want.