Last night saw the Toronto Maple Leafs jump out to an early 3-0 lead over the Colorado Avalanche in the first period. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there and thanks to a handful of bad calls by officials, the Avs would score 5 straight and the Leafs lost 5-3.
The most erroneous non-call was when Auston Matthews was cross-checked in his ribs about 3 feet from the boards. The cross-check not only sent him flying into the boards, but also saw him slow to get up and in a considerable amount of pain.
In addition to the obvious missed cross-check on Matthews, a slash on Timothy Liljegren also went undetected by officials. Yes, it was a one-handed tap, but more often than not, any tap on the hands is called nowadays.
Those were two of the obvious missed calls, but the officials made up for missing those by calling Jake McCabe in the third period on a very questionable interference penalty. McCabe cross-checked Mikko Rantanen as he was disengaging from a puck battle along the boards. What was seemingly a light cross-check sent Rantanen flopping backwards like a fish and the embellishment worked as he drew a call from officials.
Through all the games this season, this could very well be the worst officiated Leafs game so far. In the end, the Avs were given 4x the amount of powerplays that the Leafs drew. Not exactly balanced penalty scaling given what had occurred in last night's game.
