[JohnnyB]

If the league is legitimately trying to encourage puck skills and have a decent standard of regulation, then teams like the Ducks are the last that should be protected by the league. They're really good at getting away with cheap stuff and playing just beyond the line of what's allowed in a way that gives them an advantage. This is a real strength of their play as long as the league makes it such, but the way it disadvantages teams that don't play like that is counterproductive to what the league is supposedly trying to achieve in terms of creating an environment that encourages skilled play and discourages goonery. The more the league implicitly encourages this stuff while voicing and intention to clean the game up, the worse the league and the refs end up looking.