Are Leafs held to a higher standard with officiating?

[The Hanging Jowl]

I'm going to be the prototypical Leafs fan here and ask some questions.

Do the Leafs get treated differently than other teams when it comes to suspensions and penalties? My ideas:

- Skilled, fast team that annually draws penalties near the bottom of the league.
- A team that clearly (IMO) is avoiding physicality and says things like "Our powerplay is our toughness". Something I've thought for a while is a team policy because they know they're up against this issue.
- Clear inconsistencies between how the Leafs are disciplined vs. other teams (again, in my opinion). Recent examples: Staal doing the reverse elbow on Marner in the playoffs last season with no call after Bunting was suspended (in the playoffs) for a similar play but absolutely not as bad s Staal's part. McMann last night getting 5 and a game for a pretty clean hit. I could name more.
- Weird calls the Leafs get that no one else does. Example: Reimer getting a delay of game penalty for freezing the puck outside the crease (something that happens 5 times a game with no call - name me one other example where this was called).
- Then 2 nights ago, this:

Zucker taking Vengeance against Nick Cousins after his hit on Valimaki (suspended 3 games)

Would you even blame Zucker for his reaction? If I was Valimaki I am buying him dinner.

forums.hfboards.com

Cousin's hit is indisputably the same thing Kadri did to Debrusk which resulted in him being suspended "for the rest of the series". Name me another example of a player arbitrarily being suspended for the remainder of a series. It's like a special rule or something just for the Leafs. That resulted in Kadri missing 4 playoff games (most people consider a playoff game suspension the equivalent of two regular season games). So effectively an 8 game suspension. They aren't even looking at Cousin's hit. He wasn't even penalized.

FYI, this doesn't need to be a conspiracy theory, I think there's an innocent explanation: I think half the league either grew up hating the Leafs and the other half grew up loving the Leafs. The former might have a bias, who knows, but I think the latter group is the real problem. Officials, the war room and the DoPS don't want to come across as biased so they err on the side of caution when it comes to the Leafs.

I also think this same logic applies to why the Leafs NEVER get a night off. Opposing players were either Leaf fans and really get up for the games (often because half their family are in the building watching) or they've always hated the Leafs and up their game for that reason.

Am I the only person that thinks these things?

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[colchar]

 

[Punch Drunk Loov]

Yes. Didn't Marchand go 7 games against us and not get a penalty? Wow incredible a perfectly clean series by him.

Pretty sure Florida could do whatever they wanted against us last year but Reilly shooting a puck into the net is somehow a stoppage in play between the puck being released on his stick and it crossing the goal line

I'm too salty to be objective here clearly lol

 

[All Mod Cons]

Refs, not so much.

Dops, definitely.

 

[IPS]

This debates been done several times on here.

Either side refuses to budge an inch.

 

[keonsbitterness]

We're not as fast as we used to be.

That's all I got.

 

[leafsfan2point0]

I agree with the OP, there’s too much evidence now to turn a blind eye. The DoPS is especially biased agains the leafs.

 

[OddyOh]

100% true. The NHL is not a serious league.

 

[HellasLEAF]

Agreed, OP. The penalty stats is telling but for me it's the suspensions. Always a bit more for TML I feel. More eyes on TML players so the league can't look 'weak' when dealing with us.

 

[notDatsyuk]

Over the last 2+ seasons, we have drawn 3.68 penalties per 60 (18th), and taken 3.66 penalties per 60 (16th).

Looks not only even, but very much 'middle of the pack'.

If you take away all the dumb 'too many men' penalties, then it looks like the refs are actually favouring us.

 

[Suntouchable13]

Leafs are not even close to have taken the most penalties in the league, Anaheim leads by a country mile and Boston is also right there. I don’t buy it that the Leafs are reffed more harshly. This is just a cope mechanism about why Leafs don’t win. Nothing to do with bias from the refs or DOPS. Every fan base in the league can say the league is biased against their team and find examples as to why.

 

[Stephen]

I agree with the OP, there’s too much evidence now to turn a blind eye. The DoPS is especially biased agains the leafs.

Well, I think they're two slightly different buckets here. The DPOS run by George Parros is clearly a little boys club run with no transparency, standards, professionalism and freely make calls against teams like they're settling scores from playing days.

From a game to game on ice situation, I'd say we basically need more speed and need to bait more teams into the standard suite of obstruction calls in motion, whether that's holding, hooking, tripping.

 

[Mr_Fun]

You would need overwhelming evidence to make me believe there is some kind of conspiracy or even some kind of extreme bias against the Leafs. We've had some bad calls against and some overly favorable calls go our way. In the end, this tends to even up as the sample size increases.

 

[Punch Drunk Loov]

Just remember we also had a goal waived from Holl's pick. Something that's called 1/100 games.

Reilly's goal calloff I can't remember 1 comparable call like this in 25 years.

Jarnkrok's stick was held in OT but that was clean.

 

[pcruz]

Well, I think they're two slightly different buckets here. The DPOS run by George Parros is clearly a little boys club run with no transparency, standards, professionalism and freely make calls against teams like they're settling scores from playing days.

From a game to game on ice situation, I'd say we basically need more speed and need to bait more teams into the standard suite of obstruction calls in motion, whether that's holding, hooking, tripping.

Naw.

This team has plenty of speed and movement to be one of the most obstructed teams.

Generally speaking, it's when you're chasing the puck carrier that you tend to hold and hook, and since Toronto has the puck more often than other teams, they should also have more of these infractions.

I just think that Toronto plays too clean of a game to get power plays.

I know that's oxymoronic, but as I've illustrated before, power plays have almost no correlation to any stat other than penalties taken.


If they were to acquire a couple of the nastier and dirtier players, the Leafs would find themselves on the man advantage more often.

 

[-DeMo-]

every fan base believes this because they only see and remember there bad calls against them, you don't remember the bad calls that went your way.

 

[Eternal Leaf]

I think officials become more conscious during Leafs games.

It's the biggest stage and all eyes are on you as a referee. This causes them to become a bit gun-shy on calls during the playoffs when Toronto is playing.

 

[RunItBackAgain]

League needs to change the reffing system somehow

 

[Ciao]

I looked at the Anaheim board today, and in their books they are the most hard-done-by franchise of all time.

Apparently the on-ice officials were wearing Maple Leafs on their hearts last night.

I don't think the officiating is great, but neither do I think it is purposely biased. When there are a lot of bad calls, they can randomly pile up on one team and I think that's all that happens.

The Leafs get a kick in the nuts now and then, just like everyone else, and when that happens it sure hurts.

 

[BertCorbeau]

Yes.

 

[thewave]

Bluntly... We get jobbed all the time vs any major or growing US market. The officiating is pretty terrible and has been proven statistically to be weighted against us.

Does it not make sense that they can make a lot of money off of the largest betting hockey market? I think so.

If only we had similar to the pro SWE officials at the Jrs, we'd be sitting pretty.

 

[TMLBlueandWhite]

It's a conspiracy.

The refs are all in cahoots. The NHL is no better than the WWE. There's a reason the refs wear stripes.

They're all a bunch of crooks.

Greasy palms. They got their hand in the cookie jar. Just look the other way if you want to make a few extra bucks.

It's pretty clear that's what's going on.

Not as obvious as when Fraser was around because more refs are involved now. It's impossible to believe an ever fluctuating cast of referees could randomly pile on the Leafs every year. That's because this conspiracy runs a lot deeper than just the on-ice officials.

Bettman told them to do it.

 

[thewave]

It's a conspiracy.

The refs are all in cahoots. The NHL is no better than the WWE. There's a reason the refs wear stripes.

They're all a bunch of crooks.

Greasy palms. They got their hand in the cookie jar. Just look the other way if you want to make a few extra bucks.

It's pretty clear that's what's going on.

Not as obvious as when Fraser was around because more refs are involved now. It's impossible to believe an ever fluctuating cast of referees could randomly pile on the Leafs every year. That's because this conspiracy runs a lot deeper than just the on-ice officials.

Bettman told them to do it.

There is a reason you can say this now without being laughed out. We factually take more penalties in the PO than other teams. Though i noticed they are mitigating that statistic by giving more calls in our favor when games are out of reach.

When we are winning early and take 2 penalties in a row and get a disallowed goal that should have been good... Well

The best was goading Kadri into suspensions by consistently ignoring what should have been blatant calls.

Gudas can scream in our goalies face even. I would live to see Matthews do that exact thing. The Leafs should do that every goal. Its legit sportsmanlike

 

[TMLBlueandWhite]

There is a reason you can say this now without being laughed out. We factually take more penalties in the PO than other teams. Though i noticed they are mitigating that statistic by giving more calls in our favor when games are out of reach.

When we are winning early and take 2 penalties in a row and get a disallowed goal that should have been good... Well

The best was goading Kadri into suspensions by consistently ignoring what should have been blatant calls.

Gudas can scream in our goalies face even. I would live to see Matthews do that exact thing. The Leafs should do that every goal. Its legit sportsmanlike

It was a little tongue-in-cheek.

But it's well known the refs "manage the game". The whole Tim Peel fiasco proved that. Just another way of introducing parity.

It would take a real leap of imagination to think they all came up with the idea themselves, and kept it propagating for all these years, without authorization from above.

 

[Niagara Bill]

I tend to support the theory that the Leafs do get treated different.
1. When you say our power play is our toughness, especially in the playoffs, the refs automatically say, you are not using us to win. Fight for yourself, this is hockey.
2. Refs all grow up with similar ideas, Let the players determine the outcome.
3. The Gary Bettman influence.