Finals officiating

[MXHockey]

pensfan wrote:

The Comish wrote:

Name me another major sport that has one rule book for the regular season and another or seriously smaller rule book for their playoffs.

Having watched every Pens game in the playoffs (and 75 or so in the regular season), I can say with full confidence that the change in refereeing did not happen at the start of the playoffs...it started in the Detroit series. Its just tragic that so much entertaining hockey can be played, but when the chips are down and the stakes are the highest, in front of the largest possible audience (including many casual fans) they revert back to the less exciting style of obstruction and clutching and grabbing...no wonder the spelling bee routinely gets better ratings than the Finals (make that Final) here in the US

Amen.

I thought I was going to get labelled as a whiner for my rant, but clearly other people see that putting the whistles away was a negative in the Final.

I had no favorite in the series (I thought the wings would win), but wasn\'t cheering for one team over another by any means.

I like the rule changes, and can\'t stand seeing a dman obstruct a forward at the blue line on a dump-in. I don\'t thin the cup series was bad, just thought it could have been better.

Cheers.

[Shao]

If the NHL wants any credibility as a major sports league, it shouldn\'t be the only league who has different rules in the playoffs.

Mostly consistent rules:

NFL check.
MLB check.
NBA check.

NHL, only the die-hards know.

[metaldude26]

Well to be fair, the NBA, every year they try to crack down on some minor violation like palming the ball, or the pro-hop travel and by the time the playoffs start they completely trash the idea of calling it. And realistically, with the NBA is terrible reffing from start to finish all season.

[roncool11]

Shao wrote:

If the NHL wants any credibility as a major sports league, it shouldn\'t be the only league who has different rules in the playoffs.

Mostly consistent rules:

NFL check.
MLB check.
NBA check.

NHL, only the die-hards know.

Umm I would UNCHECK the NFL, since they also shoved the whistle down their throats during the superbowl, remember that game changing/winning catch when the Patriots were going for a perfect season, The giants had about 5 different offensive holding penalties in one play that could have been called, uncheck the NBA also, watch the NBA and you\'ll realize it\'s the worst ref\'d sport, MLB is a lot easier in my opinion to call so I\'d keep taht checked. Then theirs the biggest sport in the world, soccer, where it\'s literally just cheating since Refs are actually bribed (happened in the NBA also last year).

[BDog]

I think putting the whistle away catered to the trap in the final since the trap is all about clutching and grabbing and obstuction through the neutral zone. I enjoyed the final but can\'t help but wonder if some better hockey was missed because they stopped calling all the penalties that were called during the regular season and through some of the earlier series. Had they called \"everything\" and the players knew they were going to would we have seen more of the end to end action that would really have had us go \"WOW!\"?

[Michael T]

In this series it doesn\'t seem the change in the officiating favored either team, not just in calls but in style of play. With a different matchup though that might change. For instance Anaheim would benefit from a putting away the whistle style of play.