Amazing performance by the team again, but this time it’s the way they overcame this atrocious refereeing. I love this game, have watched it all my life, have watched most playoff games all my life. Richie and I have been harping on this all year - this is the absolute worst year for hockey refereeing EVER. By a huge margin. Honestly it impacts the ability to enjoy the game because you have no idea what’s allowed and not allowed on a night to night basis. It goes both ways, tonight and last game were not the caps got away with murder type things. Absolutely not - the officiating has been terrible both ways, both games, and it’s routine this year. It’s so sad because it overcomes a gutsy performance by the team, an amazing performance by Mika, and all we will be remembering this game by is when Panarin had to reverse hit Oshie to prevent the fifth instance of violence this evening, and happened to knock him out of the game. It’s sad.
Inconsistent refereeing is what leads to games like soccer where half the game is about playing the referee and you think “oh, that won’t happen in hockey.” It can, and that’s exactly what tonight was, just two teams trying to game powerplay out of referees and then being dirty when they can. And the referees let both teams get away with it. Frustrating.