RDOilerfan wrote on Wed, 12 June 2024 11:46

tardigrade81 wrote on Wed, 12 June 2024 08:45 Skookum Jim wrote on Wed, 12 June 2024 05:29 for reference.. compare all the slashes McDavid gets every shift vs. Florida.. not one slash call.. even on his break away.. but they pulled this weak slash by Bouchard out of the 100 committed.. look at the replay.. I have lost count how many slashes I have seen on McDavid and others. Not called. Panthers get away with murder out there. I know it’s not the full reason we’re losing. We are 0-7 on the PP. Oilers just flat out need to be better. But the refs aren’t helping Refs will never be perfect nor do I want them to be calling every single ticky tack penalty. However, I would love it (won't happen) if the NHL would make it so refs had to at times explain calls or lack there of. I'd love to hear the explanation of that. The ref is in position to see everything. If you want the little clip, you can see McD is skating straight ahead. Tkachuk who's chasing him the entire way, moves his stick and arms to the other side of McD. You then see his arms move in a yanking back motion and McD's entire lower body moves because his stride was interrupted. So there is clearly a hook and or hold that disrupted a player on a breakaway. Then he flicks his stick between his legs to yank and slash up - probably getting him in the can - right before he was going to shoot and he didn't get a shot off. So I would love to know what the ref saw and explain to fans why that wasn't a penalty in his eyes. Not to embarrass him or give him crap but to explain to the fans watching, what constitutes interference, hook, hold, or a slash because he does all of them and the ref is standing there with an unobstructed view watching it. I am not trying to become a Vancouver fan but I deem myself as a somewhat educated fan in that I feel like I have a decent grasp on the rules of hockey. Not an expert but a pretty good idea. So for education purposes, I would love to know why that wasn't a penalty because if the job of the ref is to call rules that stops scoring chances, Tkachuk never had any kind of body position to defend, he was in chase mode the entire time so the only way he could defend was to break the rules with his stick. OR if the refs are too thin skinned to stand up in front of a mic and explain, then get the NHL's director of officials to go out there and explain things. You don't have to dissect every play, pick 5 of the worst and ask why it was called or not called.

Having argued with a lot of refs over a lot of years on a lot of bad calls, I'm not sure that putting refs in front of a microphone gives anyone any comfort. Really, the only reason fans want that is because then they'll get to hear mea culpas from refs who blew calls against their team.

However, in practice what would really happen is that refs would be defensive in 99% of cases and give rationale to explain why they were right on virtually every call. That would drive people completely insane. Would anyone here feel any better if the referee came out and said that while he thought Tkachuk was close to the line, he never crossed the line? And even more so, if they pressed him and he then said that he viewed that Bouchard on the other play did cross that line?

Look at the referees on twitter. They agree with virtually every call, no matter how ridiculous. Even the league gets in to it, re-inventing what off-side is to help cover refs who didn't call back that Makar goal or giving convoluted explanations on what is and isn't goaltender interference.

I do think the refs had a really bad game last time out and the Oilers got the worst of it. I don't think there was a conspiracy against us, or that they were doing it on purpose. They just sucked and missed several calls. We're never going to remember the game where it goes the other way, because it's not going to bother us nearly as much.

The Oilers need to be better, they need to convert on their man advantages, and they need to turn this series around, no matter what calls they get or have missed. The great news is that we've been pretty close through two games despite playing like crap in Game 2 and losing the special teams battle for maybe the first time all playoffs. We get a break or two, we turn it up a notch? And the Oilers can win this thing in 6.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
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