I don't think they can fix it... As long as you accept human refs you're basically embracing a few mistakes to add to the theatre
But I can't agree that it's not terrible. Total lack of consistency and at least one or two blatent mistakes a night. Hard job but they are far far from perfect.
Maybe too radical for some, but I'd be interested in changing to 1, 3, and 5 minute penalties. The idea being that most 'questionable' calls will be only 1 min. It's always seemed crazy to me that accidentally shooting the puck over the glass was the same severity as slashing a guys hands while he's shooting.
1 Min – puck over glass, most other minor penalties outside your defensive zone, too many men, diving, lost coach's challenge
3 Min – most penalties in your defensive zone (including obstructing the development of an odd man rush), dangerous play w/o intent to injure (boarding, charging, headshots), drawing blood,
5 Min – Fighting, legitimate intent to injure, etc.
I would tie this in to another rule change I'd love to see - on a delayed penalty, the play isn't whistled down until the offending team gets the puck out of the zone (as opposed to current standard of 'possession', which is not always ruled correctly). Keeps the flow of the game a little bit more and extends the PP's
I would also give a team 1 min PP if they miss their penalty shot.
PK and PP stats would have to adjust to be per 0:60
I'd like to resurrect this thread in light of the playoffs we've seen so far.
Just off the top of my head, we have an absolutely goofy call on the Pavelski injury - nobody saw anything but there's a guy on the ice bleeding from his head, so it's a major. Changed the series.
We have a hand-pass for a game winning goal in overtime, unreviewable. Dude even gets an assist on the play. LOL.
Acciari gets slew-footed and injured (concussion and/or hamstring? looked like his leg went WAY back when he fell too). Blues take it up the ice and score what amounts to the GWG. In this instance the Blues had been given 3 or 4 penalties, the Bruins none, through the game. Because the Bruins are such a clean team, right? Nothing to call in a whole game? The penalties against the Blues were pretty legit I thought - interference/pick-play type stuff. But ANOTHER call against the Blues looks pretty bad, or what? Like, it's totally impossible again that the refs didn't see this guy have his feet completely swept out from under him.
The solution is simple - in egregious circumstances, the war room (or a secondary set of above-ice officials in the building even) call down and say "That goal can't count, here's why."
The circumstances in which this could/should occur would be when penalties are missed and goals scored (like the sharks hand-pass and the goal last night), or when someone is injured by a dirty play that is missed by the officials. This is already done to some extent - we see famous examples where play has continued for a few minutes only to be "cancelled" when it was decided that a goal had indeed been scored without people noticing it. So this is already in practice. (Same with the Ovechkin non-goal/goal thing just before the playoffs - horn sounds, head office phones and says "Guys, that's a goal.").
I think we'll see this addressed by the board of governors this summer, and I think these are the types of changes we'll see. No one thinks the playoffs have gone okay from an officiating standpoint, do they? Like, I'm not alone in thinking that this set of playoffs really proved that the NHL officiating is somehow behind the rest of the game in terms of speed or accuracy?
If a penalty is a penalty, call a penalty. Then if a penalty isn’t called it’s only because no one saw it. It’ll happen but if it happens so much less it’ll be easier to shrug and go oh well, it happens.
Consistent penalty calling for the entire game, season and playoffs. Imagine football if offside was ignored in the last two minutes of a tight game or in the playoffs.
Have an eye in the sky with access to replays to quickly correct incorrect calls. Like a high stick that was actually by teams own player, high stick or trip never made contact, puck over the glass was or wasn’t deflected, etc. Allow coaches to use their challenge on these situations if the eye in the sky hasn’t confirmed it and the bench is certain. Get that there should be no call right.
Now for missed calls that’s a tough one because play continues. Where do you draw the line?
Last edited by topfiverecords; 06-07-2019 at 11:57 PM.
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Two refs on the ice, communicating with the players, dropping pucks, blowing the whistle, announcing calls and if necessary getting between players.
Four refs sit right outside the ice on elevated seats. Give these guys headsets so they can discuss what they see and who is watching what at any given moment, give them a monitor with a good UI and access to all camera angles, and develop a clear system of communication about who should be watching what in which situation. When the game is at the other end of the ice, some refs can look at instant replays on their monitors, watch the blueline or just watch the game from what ever camera angle they want. Keep them as teams to increase efficiency and minimize errors like FIFA does.
I'm pretty sure hockey refs spend more time trying to avoid getting in the way of players or the puck than any other ref (and still get in the way more than in any other sport). It has to be a distraction, no matter how much of a professional you are. They also get in the way of the play more often than any other refs.
Movement becomes a lot harder to read when both you and the object you're watching are moving. It's why people are carefully trying to observe something, they try to be perfectly still. It would also likely be a lot easier to stay laser focused on just watching for infractions when you're just sitting still and possibly fiddling with the monitors.
Basically, I think you can see a lot of things a lot better standing outside the rink than inside, so it would make sense to have both. The refs inside the rink can focus on getting a good view of what's going on near the boards, while what ever goes on behind them is watched by refs sitting outside the ice.
This would very likely stop some of the dirty play just in itself, because it would be impossible for the players to know if a ref is watching them right at that moment.
You could also widen the pool of potential referees massively, because they wouldn't have to be good skaters and in good physical shape anymore. You could even have women behind the monitors without worrying about authority issues.
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From a purely selfish homer viewpoint, I'd like to see consistency between regular season and playoffs. If a significant part of our success is related to the fact that players can't get near Johnny with slashes, then it's pointless if the goalposts get moved for the playoffs. Again, probably just me being a bitter homer but whatever.
You want to keep the game fast but just call the rulebook. There'd be a transition while the players adjusted but after that it'd be fine. I'm ok with refs missing calls through human error or if something is somewhat subjective. Technology should really be able to fix a lot of those cases though.
Exactly, as long as refs manage games vs officiate, it can't be fixed.
So no more “game management”. Who the hell advocated for that in the first place? Sick and tired of seeing teams like Anaheim goon it up because they know damn well the refs won’t call them for everything so they roll the dice. Call the penalties when they’re observed (they’re human, not gonna see them all) and let the game play out. Stop trying to influence the outcome of the game, last time I checked kids weren’t trading referee cards.
EDIT: and one more thing, if a guy gets called for diving for the love of god don’t call a penalty on the other player too!!!
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Call the rule book, removing “game management”, and players will respond and correct their habits.
No one goes to a hockey game to watch slashes, tripping, holding, and hooking. Call all of them. You’ll naturally get missed calls, and that’s part of the game - but no more willfully ignoring them.
That’s the only way you fix it, and it’s painfully simple.
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one of my favourite ref calls was a couple years ago. Gaudreau was going up the middle near the net if i recall and the pass was out of his reach so he dove to try and get a stick on it and then was called for diving. When you see refs watch the play from 10 feet away like the trip in the boston game and dont call it, you are dealing with garbage reffing. if it wasnt seen, then fair enough but too many times the ref is right there or another favourite is when a ref is 10 feet away and the ref 65 feet away makes the call?
I don’t see what the big drawback would be to have penalties called on replays. If something happens and the refs miss it, but it is clearly noticeable on camera, it should be a penalty. Vice versa as well. Why the resistance to use technology?
Granted, there will be more penalties called, but eventually players will learn that they can’t get away with crap, especially behind the play.
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