Red Wings

[Forsh]

The thing about Vegas as a first year team is telling. I think Blashill isn't much of an NHL coach

[froot loops]

Yeah I get that free agency isn't great and finding gems in Europe is not the viable strategy it was but the NHL front offices are not so optimized that the only way to build teams is only through 1st round picks. The Vegas Knights took a bunch of those vet contracts in hopes to trade them for picks but then they started winning big.

[-Deborah-]

Am I overreacting to this??? How often is this type of stuff happening? Livid!!!

[-Deborah-]

I guess my post sounds naïve. But each sport needs to ensure this isn't happening and have accountability for their officials. This guy was fired at least but I have yet to see much in the way of accountability for bad calls otherwise.

[Forsh]

My guess is that the ref had regretted a cheap penalty call against Detroit earlier, and was trying to even things up ... that's typical in hockey

Hopefully wasn't more than that

[froot loops]

He committed the cardinal sin of committing a Kinsley gaffe.

[WingsFan]

Am I overreacting to this??? How often is this type of stuff happening? Livid!!!

I don't think you are, and it seems like its getting worse. Bad officiating has been around forever, its like politics - just don't get caught. I posted about this in the Michigan forum. I hate to say, this but all sports have peeked about 10-15 years ago.

[JGSpartan]

I'd rather they just get officials who are clearly open about their biases and don't have them ref games that their teams are in or that influence their teams. They'd just lie about who they support though.

It's likely impossible to completely remove bias from officiating. I assume anyone applying for the job loves the game and has a favorite team or two. They may even try to be fair but you know even if they try there will always be some bias.

[JGSpartan]

Regarding previous conversations on here about when to expect more progress from the Red Wings. The next two years are going to see several call-ups. I'd eye 2022/23 as to where you could expect the biggest jump.

You have to keep in mind players being in Europe this year not moving. Seider would be in the NHL now otherwise. Young guys tend to get a year in the AHL before coming up. I'd look for Veleno and Raymond to be on that first line for the Griffins next year and come up in 2022/23.

You also have to understand the salary implications. They are now largely out from under their awful contacts. But you still have a few veteran guys who are gonna stay on the NHL roster in lieu of the young guys getting a shot because they have to maintain the minimum salary cap. This could change next season when some of those deals drop off and maybe a Bertuzzi or someone gets a deal or a FA is added or a Trade. All those things and the trade deadline make it hard to speculate on that too much but currently they are eating some vet deals that need to stay up for that cap. That's why you're seeing limited callups for Cholowski/Rasmussen etc because they just can't do so currently other than injuries.

I think they are actually playing the system quite intelligently and giving themselves the ability to move on targets they need when the time comes. While at the same time doing the tanking but not tanking kinda deal in not rushing up the youths.

[-Deborah-]

NHL officiating: After ref’s audio in Red Wings game, a watershed moment?

League fires official over comment caught on audio, but will real change happen?

https://www.clickondetroit.com/sports/local/2021/03/26/nhl-officiating-after-refs-audio-in-red-wings-game-a-watershed-moment

[chemiclord]

I guess it depends on what someone means by "real change."

If you mean in terms of better officiated games, probably not. Professional sports are fast as hell and require snap decisions. As a result, a lot of officiating is going to look "bad" in hindsight with super slow motion and hours of analysis able to break down things in ways the human eye or even some sort of artificial intelligence wouldn't be able to on the spot. There's going to be a ton of shit calls even if you were able to strip any and all bias from the people making those calls (which you can't).

Now if you mean real change in terms of holding people accountable for clear bias, or things like making shit calls to make up for earlier shit calls... maybe. We can expect a high level of professionalism from officials, and we should. We should also expect leagues to not bail out shit officials by making up shit justifications rather than acknowledge there was a screw-up that directly impacted the result of a game (the NFL has been notorious for this, as Lions fans can tell you). That is possible.

[Fraquar]

Fans can live with humans erring.
Fans have a tough time living with bias.

The grey area is determining did the human actually miss the call - or did he "want" to miss it.

I'll be honest here. You see linesman in EPL the vast majority of the time get it right - even with margins in super slo mode they still can't flip the call on the field. The problem is virtually all of the focus is on the few they don't get right - in some twisted idea that a game played by humans, called by humans is supposed to be perfect.

[froot loops]

Gettind rid of the hot mic seems to me the most likely change. In most hickey games if you have a few power plays in a row you know the ref is just waiting to call something on your team no matter how marginal. In fact if the amount of power plays are all for one team, the opposing fanbase cries foul.

This poor fella was in the wrong but he was doing what I assume most of those refs do he just got caught thinking aloud.

[jaadam4]

Makeup calls aren't a new thing to hockey so none of this is surprising. I actually feel bad for the ref.

[JGSpartan]

I think the leagues need to do far more than what they do for accountability and consistency. The NFL made Pass interference replay calls a joke when in reality by the rulebook it's a pretty easy call to get right most of the time with replay.

I think Hockey has that problem tenfold with actual penalties happening a lot and often no rhyme or reason to which ones are called. That said I picture being a Hockey referee being quite difficult with screened views and probably positional awareness