NHL Officiating is getting out of hand in the playoffs Stars @ Wild Game 4

 

The Wild and Stars met again in St. Paul for Game 4 of the Best of 7 series. However, the action packed game was ruined by officiating.

The first period started by the first few minutes feeling like all Dallas, but quickly turned into Minnesota's game as they had the puck in the Dallas end for a majority of the period. No goals resulted in the period even though each team had a number of opportunities.

The second period was evenly fought in terms of shots, and time in each others end as each team got more opportunities, but Dallas got the best one of the night going onto a powerplay off a Marcus Foligno penalty. This was one of the many terrible calls by the referees last night and I'll get to that shortly. Dallas was able to capitalize with a Tyler Seguin powerplay goal to lead 1-0 going into the third.

Directly off of a Wild powerplay Evgenii Dadonov skated out of the box, and hit the back of the net putting Dallas up 2-0. The Wild got it right back 2 minutes later with a John Klingberg snipe to reduce the lead to 1. Dallas was able to get another powerplay goal off of another terrible call on Foligno who went to make a hit, both players fell down, and somehow Foligno was called for tripping? Anyways, the score being 3-1 at this point with 3 minutes left, the Wild pulled Gustavasson and this is when the 3rd trash call of the night happened. Mats Zuccarello was in the corner going for the puck when he got very lightly tapped in the shin guard, while at the same time slipped and Dallas was called for tripping. This gave the Wild a 6 on 4 advantage and they capitalized on it with a Freddy Gaudreau back door goal. The Wild peppered Oettinger the rest of the game with a 6 on 5 advantage (keeping Gus pulled) but Oettinger made some huge saves including a game saving one with 6 seconds left. Dallas escapes 3-2.

So, here we are 2-2 in the series. One blowout for the Wild, one blowout for the Stars, and a stolen game from each. The series will head back to Dallas for Game 5, where hopefully the officiating crew is better, and the broadcast isn't jittery as hell like it was in Game 1 and 2 (I'm looking at you shitty Texas power grid)

Player Profiles

The Referees

3 terrible calls, and bunch of no calls. The NHL needs to make up their mind on if they are going to call everything like they did in the regular season, or call it differently during the playoffs. Either way there were still some questionable calls last night that would change the game and probably had given us another thrilling overtime instead of the Wild losing on trash calls. There was more to it, but the penalties did play a big part.

Jake Oettinger

He is heating up, and at the right time. If he stays hot like last night, I'm not sure what the Wild can do. The same thing happened to the Flames last year. Otter got hot, Flames lost the series. Otter made a bunch of saves on Wild breakaways and in the 6 on 5 advantage that won the game for the Stars. Similar to Gustavsson's performance in Game 1, nothing was getting past him.

John Klingberg

I think the Wild are happy to have him back. He is making an impact on both ends of the ice and really looks like he wants to win a Stanley Cup out there.

Karill Kaprizov and Jason Robertson

Which one will be activated first? I think the key to winning the series is answered by whichever of these 2 comes online first. Both have been painfully average in the playoffs so far. They each scored in Game 1 and that is it to this point. They both have tons of shots, but none are going in. I think they will both play a huge part on who wins this series.