Are the Montreal Canadiens just unlucky with officiating… or has it gone beyond coincidence?
In this video, I take a realistic, pragmatic look at the growing list of questionable calls, phantom penalties, and even referee apologies that seem to keep popping up in Canadiens games. This isn’t a conspiracy theory it’s about patterns, accountability, and why so many fans feel trust in NHL officiating is slipping.
I also pitch a potential solution: referee scorecards, similar to MLB umpire tracking, and why transparency might be the best way forward for the league.
No tinfoil hats just context, trends, and a conversation the NHL probably doesn’t want to have.
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Originally from the Zelda series
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35 Comments
Curious what you think: bad luck or something the league needs to clean up? 👀🏒
Are Montreal fans too critical? Should the officials be held to a higher standard? Thanks for all your support everyone, really appreciate you.
Whiskeylung
Has been this way since Maurice Richard
Yes everything is rigged. Sports, government, religion, feudal system, capitalism. It's 2026. Yes we are blind with convenience
As a Kings fan, yes, we do get called on phantom calls. But I prefer to call them questionable calls. An example would be, Anton Forsberg being called for tripping McMann, when he was trying to get back to the front of the net. And the call caused the Kings to lose. Another example would be, the four penalties Kings were called in the first period. The majority of those calls seemed questionable. Especially since they weren't calling the same penalty on Wild. At the beginning of the season. Kings were called for 22 penalties in 4 games. It seemed like the refs had a vendetta against the Kings. And it seems like the refs have disallowed a bunch of Kinds goals. When they were actually good goals. But, at the same time. As fans, we need to understand the rules better. And an example of that, comes from this game. The "pick play" in overtime that people thought should be a penalty. It's actually allowed. You aren't allowed to make a pick play in the offensive zone. But you can in the neutral zone. So the no call was correct. I don't like blaming the refs for favoring other teams on penalty calls. Since I don't see what they are seeing. So it's easier for us to see a penalty that happened. And they could be at an angle where it looks like nothing happened when something did. Or thinking something happened when it didn't. I've always thought the refs should wear a helmet with a camera in it at all times. So we can see why they made or didn't make a call.
24 Cups. No more cups for you!! ( rat Bettman)
We must now start booing the dirty refs.😮🇨🇦
Create a new league and threaten to leave…
…that would work
As a Bruins fan I can relate. Anyone watch the outdoor game Sunday? Bruins literally played shorthanded practically the entire 2nd period once they were up 5-1 while Tampa got nothing even though there were obvious calls missed. Even got a penalty in OT. Cost them the game. It was outrageous
$$$.
This one was a bit therapeutic thanks. Def feels like something is wrong
It looks like the refs are using their job to punish a whole team for 1 players comment that was both accurate and not harsh….refs are such losers.
They dont want a canadian team winning the cup. Its clear as day.
The fanbase has always complained about the refs, but this year, the complains are ACTUALLY warranted
I've been watching Hockey all most life. I would say the Canadiens have been getting a raw deal since maybe 2005, post lock out. That's when reefing seemed to start favoring certain teams. You know the teams that the NHL was trying to Promote. It's gotten much worse since Vegas came into the league. It doesn't take a rocket science to understand that Bettman's business model is to grow the sport in certain regions. It does nothing for the NHL for the Oilers to appear in another Stanley Cup final. Montreal not only is not a franchise the league wants to grow… they actually want it to shrink since it infringes on markets around the league. That or the officiating is just letting their personal fandom or bias affect their reffing. So either their incompetent or it's something more nefarious. Those are the options.
NHL is probably managed by EA sports where you play nhl26 like you played nhl01 ;p
Refs being biased against the Canadians is not a game after game nor year after year thing. It's a decade after decade thing. We always were and always will be the "black" sheep of the league. We always were and always will be the " Frenchies" in a anglophone league. Add to that the jealousy of the fact that the Habs are the overwhelmingly most successful franchise of all time and you have a recipe for disaster. Racism is not just against people of a different skin color, it can be against people of a different culture or language.
To prove my point one major name is at the too of the list and it's Don Cherry who was blatantly racist towards french speaking players live on national television for decades.
Still don't believe me, ask a French speaking old timer who lived or heard his father's stories about Maurice Richard getting absolutely destroyed game after game with sticks to the face or cross-checks without penalties year after year.
It's imbedded in the social subconsciousness of the hockey world to not let the Flying Frenchies humiliate the league and win again and again.
I remember the face of Buttman, when he announced the habs won the first pick draw a couple years ago, he looked very disappointed.
I'm 73 years old, know little about hockey, but can skate. Where do I apply to be a ref?
From a business standpoint, the league’s nightmare is another Montréal Canadiens Finals appearance. Great hockey, sure — not so great for U.S. sponsorship revenue.
So let’s nudge the odds… gently. Nothing obvious.
There are already rumblings.
Time to keep it quiet for a while.
My wife was actually married to an NHL referee. The officials are subject to a ton of scrutiny from the league and there are many tracked metrics. These play heavily into who gets to officiate in the playoffs and how deep they go. Years ago the late treat Mick Mcgough shared that the league had serious concerns about the lack of talent coming up in the officiating ranks. It is definitely noticeable. Glad you took on this topic. I love the idea of the league making that data public.
If the refs accidentally affect the outcome or if they do it on purpose the result is the refs affected the outcome of the game. I'm not spending money or time on that.
My biggest issue with the NHL is that they are a pretty much a black box about anything when it comes to comms. It reeks of Bettman. Can’t wait until that weasel retires.
Look I don't like inconsistent calls but let's get real every team out there is having the same problem with inconsistent calls. And I'm a Montreal Canadian fan and have been for 60 years
The refs are much like anyone else with authority and they answer to those with the agenda, same system, different aspect of life.
Also the ammount of missed offside is crazy. 5 to 10 times a game. Those would result in recalled goals.
so gettting fined for speaking your mind? Basically getting sued by someone who doesn't like what he heard. Where have I heard this before….
I still dont get how you can allow sports betting and now im seeing ads EVERYWHERE for it, and have refs that are basically allowed to hold grudges and directly affect the game.
they are a young team obviously they draw a lot of penalties and if it wasn’t taken seriously the second biggest hockey market in the world and the most international would benefit. The league gains when the Canadiens are in the playoffs . I just think the habs are playing such good hockey let’s just enjoy it
I love the Habs and try to watch all the games. But I don’t love the inconsistent officiating and on an unrelated topic I hate seeing ads for sports betting. I wish the whole betting/gambling industry would simply disappear. I have absolute NO use for it. Sorry….old guy rant…..🧐
Personally, I stopped trusting the entire league since Bettman took over. And refs are just a small part of it.
Why? Because Bettman is an American from NY, and his entire mission is to make the NHL popular in the states.
How does he achieve this? Its well known that US NHL city’s also have other sports that are historically more popular, and what makes a sport more popular to fans that initially might not care about it? WINNING. Its simple, if US teams win, they get more fans, and more money, and the league can grow.
Since Bettman took over in 1993, the only Canadian team that won the cup… is the MTL Canadiens in 1993.
Since then, Quebec lost its team to Colorado.. and almost immediately won the cup.
Winnipeg lost their team in 1996 to become the Coyotes (and Winnipeg got their team back only in 2011 because the Trashers were trash and lost money)
In 2005, Revenue sharing started, with top revenue teams sharing to the lowest revenue teams (Most canadian teams have been in and out of the top 10 since then), but consistently, MTL, Toronto and Edmonton are usually amongst the top revenue teams.
What does that mean for these canadian teams? It means loosing a portion of their revenue to help other less profitable teams, but get this… Most of the money if not all of the money Canadian teams make, is in CAN$. But they pay players in US$. And they still manage to be the most profitable teams 😂.
This means in some form or another, most Canadian team has financially helped American teams to win the cup since 2005.
Add to this, very “lucky” lottery wins that seem to favor american teams in the past decade, and even before since they started using it in 1995.
And the final blow, are refs that blatantly give more penalties to Canadien teams when facing US teams, and its not even close (specially in the playoffs when games matter). Its just part of the plan to “grow” Hockey in other markets.
It's a damn patern at this point..
Been a hockey fan for over 60 years nobody gets more calls than the habs every home game they have 18000 refs in the stands and when they croak the refs arm goes up
I totally agree, I watch a lot of hockey and I also noticed that the Canadiens are given the shaft when it comes to calls. They would have more points right now and probably be first in the Atlantic if they didn’t lose those few games because of the officiating. Seems like every time Montreal is leading late in the game they are called for an infraction.
It’s odd things like this happen way more since they’ve been pushing and promoting betting on anything everything they can.
That slash on Demidov that broke his stick = nothing. That poke in overtime by Danault = penalty. Crazy.