What it's like to be an NHL playoff referee (2024)

NEW YORK — It’s a little more than four minutes into overtime, the fate of Game 2 and, perhaps, the entire series between the Hurricanes and the Islanders hanging in the balance. Every overtime feels like that, no matter how deep into a series it is, no matter how the series stands. This being an Islanders game, there’s some heavy hitting going on, as New York tries to grind the speedier Hurricanes into the ice.

Islanders television analyst Butch Goring chimes in.

“You get the sense that the refs aren’t going to want to call anything,” he says. “They want the players to decide it.”

Goring is drawing on decades of experience as both a player and an analyst, a veteran of 134 Stanley Cup playoff games with the Kings, Islanders and Bruins.

Fourteen seconds later, Carolina’s Jordan Martinook’s stick catches Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield in the face. Linesman Travis Gawryletz is standing four or five feet behind Mayfield when it happens, looking right at him. Referee Francis Charron was four or five feet behind Gawryletz, also looking right up the boards —the puck was 10 or 15 feet ahead of Martinook at that moment, being fought over by Jesper Fast and Anders Lee.

It’s an obvious high-sticking penalty, and there’s no carve-out in the rule book for the fact that Mayfield might have nudged Martinook’s stick up and helped cause the high-stick. On top of all that, Carolina already has had six power plays in the game, and New York has had none.

No call.

Play continues.

Thirteen seconds later, Fast scores the game winner.

Dave Jackson had a mantra as a referee. And the later it got in a playoff game, the closer the contest, the more he’d lean on his mantra, not just to calm his mind but to remind him of his mandate. At every stoppage, while the music blared and the players changed, Jackson would lean over, hands on his knees, catch his breath and repeat it to himself, over and over. Sometimes even out loud.

If it’s a penalty, you have to call it.

If it’s a penalty, you have to call it.

If it’s a penalty, you have to call it.

“Late in the game, I used to tell myself the biggest thing was don’t overreact because once you call a penalty, you can’t take it back,” said Jackson, who was an NHL official from 1989 through 2018 and now works as an ESPN rules analyst. “So don’t overreact. Take that extra second. But again, if it’s a penalty, you have to call it. It doesn’t matter what time of the game it is. If it’s a penalty, you have to call it.”

Officiating, as it always seems to be this time of year, is in the spotlight. Islanders fans are furious about a missed call on Martinook. Kings fans are furious about a bad call on Kevin Fiala. Wild fans are furious about ticky-tack calls on Marcus Foligno. Kraken fans are furious that Cale Makar’s late hit on Jared McCann was downgraded from a major to a minor upon review, and Avalanche fans are furious that Makar was suspended for a game for a hit that was downgraded to a minor upon review. Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe and Lightning coach Jon Cooper are playing mind games in the press about referee “manipulation.”

The refs are front and center.

It’s the last place they want to be.

“You never want to be the story,” Jackson said.

But sometimes you can’t help it. When you’re officiating an Oilers game, every penalty you call on their opponent feels like an automatic goal because Edmonton’s power play is one of the best we’ve ever seen. When it’s late in the third period of a tied playoff game, you’re dramatically affecting the game by calling a penalty. But you’re also dramatically affecting the game if you don’t.

It’s one thing to let the players play. It’s another to let them blatantly flout the rules.

“Don Cherry would say put your whistle away, let the players decide the outcome of the game,” said Kerry Fraser, who was an NHL official from 1973 to 2010. “I never really bought into that, and I always maintained that if I avoided calling an obvious infraction, then I was, in fact, having some effect on the game. That’s what we’re there for. We’re there to enforce the rules, but we’re also there to apply the rules with common sense and good judgment.”

Judgment is the keyword there. Good judgment is in the eye of the beholder. And everyone seems to want something different.

Is a penalty in the first period of a sleepy midweek game in January also a penalty in the second overtime of Game 6 of a hotly-contested playoff series? Call it that way, and the old-timers are going to lament how soft the game has gotten.

Does a player have to take off his skate and brandish it as a weapon in order to be deemed worthy of a minor penalty in the final five minutes of a one-goal playoff game? Call it that way, and the new-schoolers are going to lament how archaic the game has remained.

The Rangers’ Jacob Trouba, who frequently straddles the line between hard hockey and extralegal hockey, said he just wants “consistency” from the drop of the puck to the final whistle. The Devils’ Erik Haula said refs are calling these playoffs far too tightly, saying he prefers “a little bit more prison rules than what it is now because, to me, that’s playoff hockey.” Foligno called the officiating in the Wild-Stars series “a joke,” angry that his hyper-physical style of play — which, for decades, was the idealized standard of postseason hockey — is now considered over the line.

Everyone’s mad, all the time.

Just as NHL players are the best at what they do, it stands to reason that NHL officials are the best at what they do. And just as NHL players commit turnovers, fan on one-timers, get lost in defensive coverage or give up soft goals, NHL officials blow offside calls, miss a hit to the head, misinterpret an awkward hit along the boards as boarding, fall for a dive.

But most players don’t hear 20,000 fans chant “YOU SUCK” or worse at them the way the officials do.

Who in their right mind would even want this job?

“It’s the hardest job, next to a goalie, being a ref,” Devils defenseman Brendan Smith said. “They get no love either way. Rarely do coaches or teams believe they called it perfectly. Somebody’s normally pissed on one side or the other. I sympathize with the refs. It’s a tough gig.”

It’s late in the second period of Game 4 between the Oilers and the Kings, and Edmonton has cut a 3-0 deficit down to 3-2. It’s a little tense at Crypto.com Arena. The Oilers are in the offensive zone, and Connor McDavid leaves the puck for Leon Draisaitl up top. Draisaitl cuts across the high slot, where the Kings’ Fiala steps up into him, delivering a shoulder-to-shoulder hit. It’s clean. It’s not late; the puck is right there between their feet. It’s the hit that knocks Draisaitl to the ice, not Fiala’s stick, which ended up between Draisaitl’s skates due to the shockwave of the hit.

Off in the distance, in the far corner of the ice, the right arm of referee Chris Lee —who can only see the back of Fiala at the moment of contact — shoots up. Tripping.

Wait, tripping?

Draisaitl, naturally, scores on the ensuing power play with just 11 seconds left in the period, tying the game. It’s a soul-crushing goal for the Kings. Edmonton wins 5-4 in overtime.

Talk to just about any player in these playoffs and they’ll tell you that more penalties are being called than ever.

It’s not entirely true.

Through the first four games of each first-round series, there has been an average of 8.46 minor penalties called per game. Using data pulled by analyst Prashanth Iyer, there was an average of 9.24 minors per game in the first round last year. Relative to the past decade or so, this year’s average is a little high, but not egregiously so. Calls really spiked with the crackdown on obstruction coming out of the 2004-05 lockout (there were 11.1 minors called per game in the first round in 2008, for example), but this year’s total is in the general ballpark of the new normal.

The following chart is for the first round only and excludes major penalties, misconducts and matching minors.

Now, it’s early. And as Cam Charron has been tracking, fewer penalties get called the later you get in a series, and the later you get in the postseason. So these numbers could drop by the end of the first round. But so far in these playoffs, the officiating has been pretty tight. Certainly compared to yesteryear, when it was closer to Haula’s “prison rules” than the modern-day game.

“We were talking about that the other day, how there’s probably more penalties called in the playoffs, at least to start, than even the regular season,” Rangers winger Patrick Kane said. “That’s not how it used to be. It’s a little bit different now. Especially early in the playoffs, it seems like they’re trying to set a standard. (You need) awareness that you’re probably not going to get away with certain things that you might have gotten away with in the regular season.”

And that’s how the league wants it.

Jackson said that the NHL’s director of officiating, Stephen Walkom, and commissioner Gary Bettman have made it clear to officials that they have the league’s blessing to call games by the letter of the law, not by some amorphous concept of what playoff hockey is supposed to look like.

“People don’t believe me when I say it, but they’ve done a good job telling that to the referees,” Jackson said. “They’ve told the referees, ‘You know what the standard is. Call a penalty, and if it meets the standard, we’ll support you, regardless of the time of game and regardless of the score.’ So the refs aren’t afraid to call it, no matter what the situation is.”

Walkom should know. During the 2013 playoffs, he called what could have been an incredibly fateful penalty late in Game 7 between the Blackhawks and Red Wings in the second round. Brandon Saad and Kyle Quincey got tangled up along the boards well behind the play, and Walkom called them for matching roughing minors just as Niklas Hjalmarsson scored what would have been the game-winning goal with 1 minute, 49 seconds to play in a 1-1 game. The whistle negated the goal. Hjalmarsson was beside himself. The fans were irate. Joel Quenneville was spewing venom and vitriol.

Fortunately for Walkom, Brent Seabrook scored in overtime to send the Blackhawks into the Western Conference final. But if Detroit had scored, there likely would have been significant changes in Chicago after a third straight early exit, and the Blackhawks might have been little more than a one-Cup wonder rather than the three-time champion team of the decade.

All because of a scuffle nowhere near the play and a call that probably shouldn’t have been made.

That’s the kind of weight that rests on officials’ shoulders in these big moments.

Fraser told a story about the 1989 Stanley Cup Final between Calgary and Montreal: He sent off Mark Hunter for boarding Shayne Corson late in the second overtime of Game 3, with the series tied 1-1. Fraser could see it coming in slow motion.

“I’m going, ‘Hunts,’ in my head, ‘Don’t hit him, don’t hit him, don’t —’ POW,” Fraser said. “He blasts him right in the back in the numbers, drives his head into the boards. I haven’t called a penalty in 58 minutes. Up goes my arm. It has to be called.”

Stéphane Richer scored the game winner on the ensuing power play. The then-director of officiating, John McCauley, vocally supported Fraser when he was surrounded by reporters the next day. For Game 4, Fraser was the stand-by ref, and he bumped into Don Cherry in the press box bathroom between periods. Cherry chewed Fraser out for the call, for not letting the players “decide the outcome of the game.”

“I was young, very young, and I was arrogant,” Fraser said. “Let’s call me confident. I got into it with Cherry. I said, ‘You’re full of s—, this stuff that you talk about, ‘Let the players decide the outcome of the game.’ And I gave him John McCauley’s line: ‘If I wasn’t going to make that call, I might as well (have) come into your TV room, sat on my ass beside you and watched the game on TV.’ I said, ‘That’s what we’re there for.’”

It’s Game 4 of an increasingly heated series between the Wild and Stars, and the Foligno is being inexplicably — in his mind, at least — sent to the box for the second time, this one late in the third period of a one-goal game, his Wild trailing 2-1.

“F—ing joke!” he yells at referee Garrett Rank.

Earlier in the game, Foligno had been called for interference for what looked like good old-fashioned forechecking, hitting Stars defenseman Jani Hakenpää behind the Dallas net, while the puck was still at Hakenpää’s feet. Dallas scored on that power play. Now he’s being sent off for tripping for, what, missing a hit along the boards on Mason Marchment? Marchment did a “Matrix” move to avoid Foligno’s hit, and in the process, their left skates touched, sending Marchment to the ice.

Dallas again scores on the ensuing power play. The Wild lose 3-2, evening the series.

There is accountability for NHL officials, believe it or not, even if they’re now shielded from reporters and never hung out to dry by the league. There’s a logger watching each game in the league’s situation room, jotting down notes on every penalty — and every perceived missed call — throughout the game. Through a program called Video Cast, these logs are available to each ref, updated in real time, on their laptops either in the locker room between periods or back at the hotel after a game. The cleaner your logs, the more high-profile games you’re likely to officiate. It’s a meritocracy — in theory, at least.

Every ref goes over every entry after every game. And it’s not always a pleasant experience.

“If you miss a call, or make a call that’s not the best call, it sticks with you,” Jackson said. “You won’t sleep well that night. Guys just want to be perfect, and it’s an unattainable goal.”

Let’s clear up a few other half-truths, myths and misconceptions while we’re at it. Do refs “manage the game,” trying to keep power plays relatively even? Sure. Within reason, and not always — some teams are just more aggressive, reckless and penalty-prone than others (that sound you just heard was Islanders fans screaming into the void about that 6-0 Game 2 power-play disparity).

Do refs come in with agendas? Not exactly. But they’re aware of the vibe a series has going in. The officials are usually changed out every game in every series, but each series also has a supervisor who attends every game. They’ll huddle with the refs before each game to give them a sense of how the series has gone, if tempers have been flaring, if there were any cheap shots from the previous game that could have consequences in the next, if there are too many post-whistle scrums happening and if there’s a need to rein everybody in and lower the temperature by calling it extra tight in the early going. (The officials will usually give the coaches a heads-up about that last part, so they can let their players know that they won’t be able to get away with much on a given night.)

Can a linesman call a penalty? Only if it’s a high stick that draws blood, teeth or some other obvious injury; there has to be actual evidence of the stick foul. In lieu of that, could Gawryletz (the linesman) have somehow signaled to Charron (the referee) if he had seen the Martinook high stick and Charron hadn’t? In theory, it could happen, if they’re very fast and very surreptitious about it. In practice, it almost never does, and, legally speaking, isn’t allowed.

Do all refs call a game the same way? Of course not. They’re only human, and every call (save for fights and blood-drawing high sticks) is subjective. And just like players scout that evening’s goalie for weaknesses and soft spots, savvy veterans know each ref’s foibles and tendencies.

“You get a feel for how a game will be reffed right off the bat,” New Jersey’s Smith said. “You understand what’s going to happen in the first five or 10 minutes. And you also have to do your homework with your refs. Some refs see something more than others. So whether it’s someone who likes to call a lot of hooks, or somebody that likes to call a lot of cross-checks, or somebody that likes to call a lot of trips, you’ve got to be aware of these things and play accordingly. There’s a lot that goes into it.”

The older vets like Smith and Kane, they get it. They understand how difficult the referee’s job is, how deeply the officials care about making the right call (or non-call), how imperfect a science it is, and how thankless a job it is.

Not that it’ll stop them —or their teammates, or their coaches, or their general manager, or their fans — from going ballistic when they don’t like one of those calls.

It’s OK. The refs are used to it. It’s just part of the gig.

“You don’t go into the business of officiating if you want accolades,” Jackson said. “You really need to have strong self-affirmation skills. It sounds corny, but if you can look yourself in the mirror after the game and if you’re honest with yourself, you know when you’ve done a good job and you know when you’ve been less than stellar. And when you know you did a good job, that’s enough affirmation for me. It doesn’t matter who’s mad at me.”

— The Athletic’s Michael Russo contributed to this report.

(Top photo: Harry How / Getty Images)