RALEIGH, N.C. — The head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes believes NHL referees are the finest in the world, but Rod Brind’Amour thinks they need additional support to handle the mayhem that unfolds during playoff hockey.
Brind’Amour has endorsed expanding video replay beyond its current scope to examine not only penalty infractions but all activities during the increasingly intense post-whistle confrontations. While opinions vary on reviewing penalty decisions, his fundamental argument about ensuring accurate calls during Stanley Cup competition resonates.
“You can’t get better officials. We have the best — I want to make sure everybody understands that — I know no one else could do a better job,” Brind’Amour said with his team up 2-0 in a second-round series against Philadelphia. “But man, it’s just hard to see some of the penalties that are getting called, that if you just took a quick peek, you’d go, ‘Oh wait a minute, that’s not what happened.’”
“We’ll get to it at some point, but I think they could use a little hand.”
This year’s playoff contests are seeing 10.6 penalties and 25.1 penalty minutes per game through Tuesday, based on SportRadar data. This marks the highest penalty average since 2009’s 10.9 per game, and only the second instance since 2012 where penalty minutes have surpassed 25 per contest (2023 saw 28 penalty minutes per game).
Currently, NHL officials can examine major and match penalties that don’t involve fighting, either upholding them or reducing them to two-minute minors. They may also review double-minor high-sticking calls to verify the correct player is being penalized.
“I don’t think there’s a harder job to officiate, and our guys don’t get the credit they deserve,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Wednesday on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show.”
“I mean, they are moving with the flow of the game. They’ve got to skate like the players, it’s physical, they’ve got to stay out of the way. There’s a lot going on really fast. And it is remarkable how good a job they do and how much they get right. And video replay for us has really vindicated their performance even more.”
The Eastern Conference’s top-seeded Hurricanes coach initially brought up this subject following a first-round sweep of Ottawa. His frustration stemmed from an incident where Senators forward Ridly Greig threw two unprovoked punches at Hurricanes defenseman Sean Walker — including an uppercut to the face — while Walker was tied up with Senators forward Warren Foegele.
Despite the obvious infractions in that 4-2 series-ending defeat, Greig escaped penalty, though the NHL subsequently suspended him for two regular-season games. Making matters worse, Brind’Amour noted, was that Carolina ended up playing shorthanded after the sequence. He proposed having a dedicated official monitor replays to assist on-ice referees.
“The only reason (Greig) did that was because he looked, no one’s watching, doesn’t get called for it, and we somehow ended up short on that,” Brind’Amour said. “That’s wrong. That’s not right. Just get it right.”
The challenge lies in determining the best approach if the league eventually adopts broader replay usage.
“That’s a good question because like a lot of times guys get away with stuff in there,” Buffalo Sabres forward Josh Dunne said about more replay reviews of scrums in particular.
“Some guy starts, another guy gets the penalty for it,” he said. “It’s hard, it’s a hard line. It’s why it’s so much on the judgment of the refs where it’s like they can only see what they see, where it’s like you never really know how these things get going.”
His coach, meanwhile, chuckled that he’s “not a huge fan of another video review.”
“I don’t mind Rod’s thinking at all,” said Lindy Ruff, whose Sabres are facing Montreal in Round 2. “I just think, boy, if now we’re going to review something, we start reviewing scrums, I just think players will start taking acting lessons.”
However, some theatrical elements already exist in the sport. Brind’Amour’s foresight proved accurate when he mentioned this before Game 1 against the Flyers.
“It is impossible to referee our sport live, it really is — it’s just everything’s happpening so fast, now you’re getting embellishment everywhere,” Brind’Amour said then. “Sticks aren’t even coming close to you, they’re doing this (leans his head back) because why? Because if this goes like this (raises arm), you’re getting a call. But if you’ve got a guy on the review that said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s embellishment,’ it would be out of the game.”
Several days later, Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook received a high-sticking penalty despite video evidence showing Flyers defenseman Nick Seeler grabbing Martinook’s stick and essentially striking himself in the face to draw the call.
Dunne expressed concern about slowing down gameplay with additional replay reviews, while Colorado Avalanche forward Brock Nelson said he generally “liked where the game is at.”
“I don’t want to make too many adjustments or critiques to the game,” Nelson said before the Avalanche opened its series against Minnesota.
“I’m a traditionalist. The more rules you make, the more you have,” said Anaheim Ducks coach Joel Quenneville, whose team is battling the Vegas Golden Knights in Round 2. “There’s always some extenuating consequences off of things like that. We got a lot of rules, so either way, I like to just get it right and move on. Either way it is, we’ll move on.”
