NHL Refs And Linesmen Are Pretty Much Asking To Get Hit These Days
If you watched that video and are left incredibly confused, then welcome to the club. Somehow Predators’ center Ryan Johansen ended up getting an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty last night on this faceoff and it’s quite possibly the softest call in NHL history. Now we may never know exactly what was said here but if I had to guess, Johansen was probably chirping stripes to get that cheating bastard Antoine Vermette to line his feet up the right way. Sorry that Johansen had to do your job for you, ya Zebra. Sorry that he’s just looking for a good clean draw here when the team is already down by 2 and he doesn’t want the Ducks to get any unfair advantage. But because Johansen, as the defensive center, wouldn’t put his stick down first he got tossed from the draw. Then after getting the boot, he probably had another few choice words for the linesman and get sent off to the penalty box to feel shame for 2 minutes. And holy fuck this linesman is softer than a brand new roll of Charmin.
We’ve seen this happen in other leagues before. Officials are trying to make the game about themselves. Nobody is more guilty of this than MLB umpires. Guys like Joey Crawford started the movement in the NBA. But I’ll be damned if we let this happen to the NHL. If linesman are going to start calling penalties because their poor wittle feelings got hurt, then maybe Dennis Wideman was right. Maybe some of these guys do need to take a hit every now and then. Toughen them up a little bit. I’m not saying that it’s time to declare open game just yet. But the officiating crews are coming dangerously close to leaving the boys with no other options.
P.S. – through 2 weeks of the 2016-17 NHL season, the Canadiens are very good and the Predators are very bad. So it looks like it’s case closed on the Weber for Subban deal. Time to declare Montreal the winner right here and right now. Because as we all know, Montreal never blows a season after having an incredible month of October.