Leafs Gain Favourable Officials as Referees Announced For Game 2 of the Battle of Ontario

The Ottawa Senators and head coach Travis Green took issue with the officiating in Game 1 of the Battle of Ontario, which saw the Senators get just two power plays compared to the Leafs' six.

The Leafs and Craig Berube, on the other hand, saw no issues with the officiating.

Fans were elated to see that the Leafs were able to avoid Wes McCauley in Game 1. Thankfully, they have done so for Game 2. Instead, the Leafs and Sens will have Gord Dwyer and Pierre Lambert officiating their game on Tuesday night.

How might the Leafs have favourable officials for Game 2, you might ask? During the regular season, home teams won an average of 64 percent of the games when either Dwyer or Lambert were officiating. With tonight's game occurring in Toronto, the Leafs appear to have a distinct advantage.

While Senators fans will be losing their minds about the win rate of home teams under Lambert and Dwyer, this is nothing new to the Leafs, who have experienced worse calls than what the Sens think were bad calls in Game 1.

The Senators will need to control their emotions better in Game 2 if they don't want to give the Leafs more power play opportunities, but that's much easier said than done when being led by the sometimes overly emotional Brady Tkachuk.