Sutherland's Revenge Or Bettman's Vision

[Beastmode33]

Is it just us, or will other Canadian teams face similar officiating in these playoffs?

The facts - Canadian teams and penalties taken, 2013 Playoffs:

Toronto is at the bottom of the league in penalties taken, however, they are the highest valued team in the NHL and Gary may be giving them a pass. They are also playing the Boston Bruins who benefit from referees "letting them play" and amazingly only have 8 penalties taken....

Ottawa and Montreal are near the top of the list along with us for most penalties taken. There would not be much point for Gary to interfere in this series as either way a Canadian team is coming out of the second round.

Obviously, we had the most penalties taken overall at the time of our exit from the playoffs.

So, is it just us?

[SkeeterHansen]

I don't think there's any "conspiracy" involved at all, be it Sutherland wanting revenge or Bettman managing a series....it just comes down to straight up incompetent officiating. We've seen it all year long, and not just in Vancouver.

[Primal Optimist]

I generally don't subscribe to conspiracy theories of any type. The suggestion is that the officiating of any given game is derived from the NHL head office opinion of the teams in that game and what the 'story line' of the nhl should be. I don't buy that suggestion one bit, because the minute any of the insiders to that 'collusion' go public the 3billion dollar a year industry called NHL hockey becomes the WWF of team sports, in short a joke.

Bettman would not gamble 30 billion a decade and growing on 'shaping' the outcomes.

So, the other easy explanations are the team was undiciplined, it was a borderline call, and tough luck, lost in overtime.

For me it goes back to the coach saying publicly that he didn't like getting more goals than the one he needed to win the game: when you play a one goal per game differential you flip a coin as to who gets the game winner...and last night the coin flip came up tails..so lets fire the gambler coach and move on.

[a Fool]

Bettman needs to walk off into the sunset, and take his lockouts and sunbelt teams with him.

[Lychees]

Reffing is just incompetent, it has been both ways even in our series, just that it favors SJ more than us.

Honestly the lockout affected the referees more than the players it seems

[snucks]

Its about refs playing the game instead of letting the players play. They have in recent years become a factor instead of just a referee. Now they have 2 and no one seems to know what they are doing.It is frustrating watching let alone playing.At some time a few yrs ago they changed the way they ref games. Of course changing it to 2 refs made things worse. They are more like police than refs. They speak of "game management" like the game is a corporation, or some entity that they need to "manage"

[PlayoffHockey]

i want to know what team 1040 was alluding to about Gary Bettman getting Van-SJS penalty updates last night and the clipboard ?

made it sound fishy.....

(something about someone sitting beside Gary last night and seeing that he was getting updates on Penalties on a clip board last night from a communications staffer about the Van-SJS game...)

[a Fool]

i want to know what team 1040 was alluding to about Gary Bettman getting Van-SJS penalty updates last night and the clipboard ?

made it sound fishy.....

(something about someone sitting beside Gary last night and seeing that he was getting updates on Penalties on a clip board last night from a communications staffer about the Van-SJS game...)

[platotld]

https://www.facebook.com/FireKellySutherland

[darkpoet]

I generally don't subscribe to conspiracy theories of any type. The suggestion is that the officiating of any given game is derived from the NHL head office opinion of the teams in that game and what the 'story line' of the nhl should be. I don't buy that suggestion one bit, because the minute any of the insiders to that 'collusion' go public the 3billion dollar a year industry called NHL hockey becomes the WWF of team sports, in short a joke.

[TheJokesOnYou]

I don't think there's any "conspiracy" involved at all, be it Sutherland wanting revenge or Bettman managing a series....it just comes down to straight up incompetent officiating. We've seen it all year long, and not just in Vancouver.

[CanucksJay]

Now stop to ponder on the possibility that all "the insiders to the collusion" have something to gain from it

(stating the obvious here, but it had to be done)

If you were in a situation with a small group of like minded individuals whereby you stood to gain significantly somehow, why would you "rat yourself out" (go public) ?

- and please don't bring up a crisis of conscience -

$3 Billion Dollars are $3 Billion reasons to "keep your mouth shut"

[TheJokesOnYou]

Now stop to ponder on the possibility that all "the insiders to the collusion" have something to gain from it

(stating the obvious here, but it had to be done)

If you were in a situation with a small group of like minded individuals whereby you stood to gain significantly somehow, why would you "rat yourself out" (go public) ?

- and please don't bring up a crisis of conscience -

$3 Billion Dollars are $3 Billion reasons to "keep your mouth shut"

[CALGARY!]

There is no conspiracy, although at one point I thought things were fishy, Calgarys game six no goal scf, oilers losing the goalie who carried them to the scf next season, Ottawa taking a beating from Ducks, while the ducks were hardly penalized, Canucks and Bruins etc. But I have also watched every other scf since around 93 when I was just a litte guy, and refs always mis calls or make bad calls, they are human believe it or not. The league is not fixed.

What does suck for the Canucks is since about 03 or 04 they have built up a reputation as divers, whiners, pouts etc, and on top of that they have publicly called refs out, even over meaningless regular season games. Where other players and teams take bad calls on the chin( except Torts), the Canucks focus on it. This will come to bite you.

Well better luck next year, there are lords veterans with big bodies, good leadership and a few strong playing years left available at free agency. If the Canucks can add some pieces shed some salary, they can continued to be competitive.

[TheJokesOnYou]

There's always a whistle blower.

Someone who's life goes down the drain and they need a book deal or something lol

There is no conspiracy folks.

[Beastmode33]

Last Canadian cup was Montreal 1992-93 against Los Angeles Kings

Bettman hired in 1993 with vision to expand into america

Los Angeles seen as Vessel for that to happen with Wayne Gretzky trade

Gary's Revenge?

[funat5pm]

Now stop to ponder on the possibility that all "the insiders to the collusion" have something to gain from it

(stating the obvious here, but it had to be done)

If you were in a situation with a small group of like minded individuals whereby you stood to gain significantly somehow, why would you "rat yourself out" (go public) ?

- and please don't bring up a crisis of conscience -

$3 Billion Dollars are $3 Billion reasons to "keep your mouth shut"

[Biznow]

I vote incompetence rather than conspiracy too. If there was a conspiracy against the Canucks, Auger would have been promoted to head referee... There were three major factors at play I think:

A) During the 2011 cup run, every team was saying the Canucks were divers, because Vancouver's PP was so potent, teams were looking for any possible way to face it less. This reputation has stuck to them like glue, and they get none of the "iffy" calls in their favor.

B )They were chasing the sharks a lot in this series, which usually leads to a higher than normal amount of penalties. Combine these penalties with the ones discussed in point A, and you get a lopsided penalty differential.

c) San Jose's dives fooled them.

[Milk Hot Dog]

https://www.facebook...KellySutherland

[Underachieving Hero of CDC]

^{I don't think Bettman is making phone calls to refs and telling them to screw us over. I do realize though that the Canucks have a bad reputation around the league as divers, they've had several run-ins with referees over poor officiating that have spilled into the media, they've had the whole Auger-Burrows fiasco, Gillis calling out the refs in the Chicago series 2 years ago, and more recently AV was criticizing how the faceoffs in our series were being managed and Bieksa suggesting that the refs were falling for some SJ embellishment. Whether what is being said is justified or not, that type of stuff probably doesn't go over well with the referee fraternity.}