What happened?
Adam Vingan, beat writer for Predators: Predators striker Arvidsson was incredulous after being penalized for taking down Merrill, the defender of the Red Wings, early in the second period. The repetition seemed to prove his reaction. Predators television analyst Chris Mason came to call this a Merrill dive.
The Predators eliminated Arvidsson’s penalty and won 2-0, but the moment of the hot microphone hovered over the game.
Are there any general ramifications of this incident?
Scott Burnside, senior writer: The NHL’s swift and severe punishment of Peel should be a stark reminder to all officials that each game, in fact each period and each turn, is its own entity and must be summoned based on the facts presented on the ice, not on any type of external circumstance. The vagaries of what officials call games have long been a bogeyman for the NHL, especially in the playoffs, where the standards employed in penalties vary from period to period, game by game, series by series. We hope that the 2021 playoffs will reflect the kind of reflection that we would expect a moment like this to present to NHL officials on the ice.
An officer’s perspective
Asked about his reaction to the comment heard on Wednesday morning, retired NHL referee Kerry Fraser called it “unhappy”.
“There are so many hot microphones on a rink now that the authorities cannot have any kind of private conversation, because someone is always listening,” said Fraser, whose career spanned 30 years. “As a refereeing team, and since we switched to the two-referee system, there are times in a game when the two referees consult each other on the progress of the game, the requirements of each game. No two games are the same. Good referees – great referees – feel the game ”.
Fraser added that there were times in his career when “I would like to have a penalty – not to create one, but to have one that happened to me that was a gift that I could make a call for one reason or another to lower the temperature down on a game. “
(Photo: Christopher Hanewinckel / USA Today)