Game summary stats…. 2 penalties for Detroit, 2 penalties for Carolina…..
No one can watch that game back, see the facial injuries from multiple high sticks, look at the boarding and cross checks, etc etc and see the dominant play of Canes versus Detroit and think that there should be only 4 total penalties called in that game….
It’s not just the ones called, it’s the ones not called. This crew should have to answer publicly for their performance tonight.
It’s interesting. I was browsing the net earlier, and I read about “The Wideman Effect.”
In case you weren’t aware, Dennis Wideman intentionally injured an official back in 2016. His intentions were very obvious, coming shortly after what he believed to be a missed call.
Now Wideman was initially suspended 20 games for this play (reduced to 10 on the appeal), but that’s not where the story ends. Here are the penalties on the Flames before and after the injury, and the season after.
Calgary's penalties/game
Season before: 2.63 (29th in the league)
Before the ref injury: 2.62
After the ref injury: 3.88
Season after: 3.93 (1st in league)
Now Brian Burke (President of Hockey Operations for the Flames at the time) mentioned in his book that he eventually took those numbers, set up a meeting with Bettman and the head of officiating, showed them the drastic change and basically said “Knock it off or I take it to the media and let the league deal with the shitstorm that follows.” It seems to have worked.
I wonder how bad it has to be for someone in our organization to do the same thing.