When the final number of power plays is ten to five, something is amiss. I've been following this trend for a while now, and it's finally so painfully obvious that I have to say something. I've always suspected that referee Chris Lee was biased against Montreal. He has made some weak calls in his time, and nine times out of ten, when I see a series of bad calls made against Montreal, and I check the box score, Chris Lee's name appears.
Thursday night was the clincher. I was in Kansas City (no Gary, no NHL team needed there) on business, so I didn't see the game. But I did notice that Montreal had to kill off TEN power plays. This is a pretty big number, and included a lot of tripping and holding calls. Basically, the question is, was this a typical game? If so, then no one can fault a referee for awarding ten power plays against an undisciplined team. So, let's take a look:
As of today, Montreal is tied for 11th in the league for the most penalties-in-minutes per game with 17.2. That means, that out of the 60 minutes (or more) per game, Montreal averages playing 17 minutes and 12 seconds with a man in the box. Now, let's throw out Thursday night's game. Without it, Montreal has a total 148 total penalties in minutes over nine games. That averages out to 16.4 penalties in minutes per game. So Thursday night saw Montreal's entire average shoot up almost an entire minute per game. So, statistically speaking, Thursday
was NOT a typical game for Montreal. They are usually MUCH more disciplined. Add to that Montreal is in the upper half of the league in the number of fighting majors, it becomes apparent that Montreal is quite disciplined; when they do get penalties, a good amount of the minutes come from actual fights, not from hooking and tripping.
So, maybe Montreal cut loose and played a hard-nosed game. But if that had been the case, there would have been at least one fighting major. As it turns out, Montreal was playing the least penalized team in the league and there were no fights. People did get to see Saku and Mikko Koivu in a scuffle near the end, but that was it.
So, in my book, it's official. Chris Lee is a biased referee with as much credibility as Tim Donaghy. Notice has been served to Montreal: when Chris lee is officiating, he does not want you to win.
As a post-script, I will readily admit that I have seen calls in Montreal's favor from some officials. But, as is human nature, we dwell on the negative. I really don't keep track of who is giving these gifts to Montreal, but when they happen, I roll my eyes and think of how they at least off-set all the crap from corrupt referees like Chris Lee.
3 comments:
I don't think its just a thing with him in Montreal, I think its a thing league wide with refs. Did you happen to maybe catch any of the Bruins/Stars game on Saturday? It was totally out of control from the moment the puck was dropped and got realy ugly in the 3rd. Don't get me wrong, I love fighting in hockey but the cheap shots that happen before that lead up to these brawls need to be called!
I'm glad you didn't just jump on me for bitching about how Habs games are called ;-)
I agree officiating league-wide is terrible. They lose control of games pretty frequently, and then wonder how incidents like the one with Todd Bertuzzi happen.
I noticed it's been more brutal this year. Also when you see a player on the other team blatantly hook a Hab 3 times right in front of the ref and it's ignored completely, while one touch by the Hab sends him to the box... well something is up. Overall, calls have been really questionable lately and I'm starting to wonder if these zebras have some hidden agenda. It seems today that when you sneeze on someone you get called for "interference". And with these new faceoff rules, I'm seeing a lot more diving going on... Thankfully, even when games are absolutely handed to the other guys, the Habs have been pretty good at squeezing out a win for the most part. And when the ref has it out for you, winning those games are the best.
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