Let's get right out in front of this: the Canucks didn't lose this series because of officiating. They lost because the Sharks were better, because San Jose's speed on the forecheck gave them fits, because they couldn't handle the Sharks' depth down the middle, and because their penalty-kill went lame at the worst possible time.
But even still, man alive, did that lame penalty kill get a lot of chances to fail, especially compared to San Jose's. Granted, the Sharks were going to draw more penalties because they had the puck more and they were faster, but as TSN analyst Ray Ferraro noted in Game 4, "From a Vancouver standpoint, you have to feel like any time there has been a 50/50 call, it's gone against you. They have to be furious."
The Canucks were indeed furious. While, again, the Sharks made it to Round 2 the old-fashioned way -- by outplaying their Round 1 opponent -- San Jose was also handed a few big-time momentum shifts throughout the series as a result of some oddball calls. There aren't many outside of San Jose who feel Daniel Sedin's penalty in overtime was warranted, for instance.
But as this video from Canucks fan and prolific Youtuber Makaveli suggests, there's a case to be made that the questionable officiating went beyond that.
↧