Watching the Leafs game, got me thinking about playoff reffing.
You get high sticking calls. And, to be clear, they are penalties. I just don’t feel like they massively impact the play, the way that other types of penalties can. But they are usually obvious, and closer to a black and white call (similar to puck over glass). So, high sticking penalties often get called.
The issue is that, come playoff time, calling penalties tends to become optional. So, you have defenders tackling forwards in front of the net, and no call. That is considered playing with “heart” and “desire to win” and good defending. But, to me, it does impact the game quite a bit. It’s one of those types of penalties that can take away a scoring chance. And it is an intentional infraction. The players know exactly what they are doing. And they very often do not get called.
Compare that to high sticking plays, which tend to get called, they often do not affect a scoring play. And, often, they are accidental. A player tries to pop someone’s stick to steal the puck, misses and hits a player in the face. Or they are careless with their stick and they accidentally hit someone in the face. Not good things, but not intentional.
And then you also have the issue with drawing blood. This is almost a random effect. You clip a guy hard and no blood. You clip a guy another time and their face explodes with blood. Again, intent isn’t really part of the equation. But it can result in a 4 minute penalty on something that is sort of luck-based.
You end up with a situation where a low impact, unintentional infraction can have a major affect on the game, where other types of penalties that do have an impact on the game, and are intentional, often go uncalled.