^^ Yes, my wording was poor. The officiating has been largely crap overall.
I'm admittedly not the world's biggest hockey fan (keep an eye on it in the background, and been facinated by the Bruins' playoff run, so seen a lot more lately), but I haven't really seen any big problems with the refs. They've mostly stayed out of it and let the players play, except towards the end of a few chippy games where things were just getting out of hand.
They've mostly made the calls, just the Commish's office that has failed to back them up when needed. Pretty sure if there's a 1-game suspension for the bite in game 1, the series doesn't get quite as chippy as early, maybe the Horton hit doesn't happen. Because the NHL didn't deal with it, it put it back on the players, and things sorta escalated a bit more than they might have otherwise.
Actually, the ref's non-call on that bite is one of the few times I've wondered why the hell there wasn't a call. It happened right in front of him, and they showed video of the bruins player skating over after and showing tooth marks and blood on his finger, not sure exactly what the ref thought happened, but seemed pretty straight-forward here
But really, what are examples of the refs really being that bad? Not really tilting one way or the other, so been pretty even. Tending a little bit towards non-calls on plays rather than tick-tack calls constantly, which IMO is the RIGHT side of the line to come down on in the Championship series.
I honestly can't say I know enough of the specifics to say whether the Raymond hit should have been called or not, but didn't LOOK like a dirty hit or intent to injure. Result is certainly different, and that sucks, but looked more like he just caught his lower back on the boards. I mean, he DID take him to the boards, but looked pretty much like most of what's been going on, and the ref was RIGHT there on the play, so assume it would have been called right away if it was a bad play. Really not much different than the play going the other way, where the Canucks player just had to touch the puck for an icing call, and instead completely ignored it in favor of a high hit into the boards.
But like I said, generally letting them play, even if it's a bit rough, and I'm ok with that. Gotta keep it from getting out of hand, or anyone doing anything to intentionally hurt someone, but the refs have been fairly invisible in my eyes.
Honestly, the one area that I've LIKED that they are making themselves seen is on the Embellishment calls. If it's a legit hit, they're calling it, but they haven't been putting up with a lot of shit as far as flops, dives, and phantom hit with the sticks, so been happy to see that that style of play hasn't been rewarded much in the playoffs this year, and they've been actively calling out the players that play that way
