Agree with the sentiment that the refs try to be game managers but another huge piece not mentioned:
The sport is in transition from a pretty physical one to one where the culture is still hoping to retain the physical nature within a pretty obvious increasing reality where that physicality is at odds with player safety. Particularly in relation to brain injuries and head trauma.
So now you have rules that are trying to accomodate razor thin margins and basically subjectively executed. Now you have a world with no consistency, seemingly biased and nobody is happy. And it’s human nature and yes I definitely feel some teams have bias against them and I definitely feel the Flames are one of them. The bias thing isn’t necessarily new either. Detroit and Montreal for example would always seem to get the benefit of the doubt for years. Now things seem more pronounced.
So this issue won’t go away until the rules are easier to understand and clear to everybody on enforcement and not seemingly subjective requiring video review where another layer of subjectivity is applied. And the rule book has to be enforced, not selectively chosen to (game management problem). So those are the two big issues in my mind.
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