If Maple Leafs fixate on officiating, they’re doomed to lose series vs. Lightning

Matt Larkin
Matt Larkin(MLarkinHockey)
If Maple Leafs fixate on officiating, they’re doomed to lose series vs. Lightning
Credit: Wes McCauley (© Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)

Was officiating part of the story in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ putrid Game 1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning Tuesday? Sure. Any time a team loses a game in which its opponent had eight power plays, including a five-minute one after a match penalty, officiating will dominate the discourse.

But it doesn’t make the Leafs victims. No matter how skewed rabid Leafs fans believe the calls were in their opponent’s favor, the very notion of giving the zebras that much power over a series is a loser’s mentality.

A graphic circulated by Scouting the Refs on Wednesday certainly was eye-opening. Testing the theory that referee Wes McCauley had a bias against the Leafs, the site, which covers all things related to officiating, revealed that the Leafs are 0-8 in playoff games officiated by McCauley:

A conspiracy theory floated around social media this season has pointed out the personal connection between McCauley and Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe; McCauley is the brother-in-law of David Frost, the notorious agent and minor hockey coach who formed a hockey cult known as the ‘Brampton Boys’ and proceeded to manipulate their behavior as they ascended up the major junior ranks. Keefe was one of those kids and was a witness at Frost’s 2008 trial in which he was acquitted on four counts of sexually exploiting young players. A lot of theories out there claim Keefe “testified against Frost,” but plenty of other reporting claims Keefe testified on behalf of Frost, and the records of the testimony are actually sealed. In other words, anyone trying to definitively claim they know the details of Keefe’s testimony is talking out of their you-know-what.

Even if we were to acknowledge a conflict of interest involving McCauley, the theory that he is taking out a vendetta against Keefe doesn’t hold water; of those eight playoff losses in McCauley-officiated games, half were coached by Mike Babcock, not Keefe. The Leafs were also 5-0-1 in games officiated by McCauley during the 2022-23 regular season.

Asked after Game 1 whether they believed the Lightning, who won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021 and reached the final last year, got the benefit of the doubt from officials because of their veteran experience, some of the Leafs bit.

“Those ones that are borderline, more likely than not are probably going to going to go their way,” said Leafs captain John Tavares. “They’ve been to the Final three times in a row. And we have to be extremely disciplined staying out of the box and playing hard, understand the line we can’t cross and earn our power plays.”

Not all the Leafs subscribed to the line of questioning. As Auston Matthews saw it, all the penalties they took were actual penalties.

But ultimately, even if we leaned into the tinfoil had crowd and decided there was a bias against the Leafs, it shouldn’t matter. If you believe officiating is making the difference in your series, you are simply not playing well enough.

The Leafs had a tough time staying out of the box in Game 1 – and in all of their Round 1 series against the Bolts last year, too. They were on the power play 28 times compared to 33 times shorthanded. But guess what? The Leafs converted just four of their own power plays for an efficiency of 14.3 percent. The balance of calls doesn’t matter much if you aren’t capitalizing anyway.

Good teams overcome the adversity of taking penalties, be they self-imposed due to poor discipline or the result of blown calls.

Looking at the 17 Stanley Cup winning teams in the salary-cap era, nine had more power plays than times shorthanded, seven were shorthanded more than they were on the power play, and one broke exactly even.

SeasonTeamPower PlaysShorthanded+/-
2005-06Carollina129137-8
2006-07Anaheim105121-16
2007-08Detroit10698+8
2008-09Pittsburgh9784+13
2009-10Chicago8090-10
2010-11Boston8896-8
2011-12Los Angeles9476+18
2012-13Chicago7076-6
2013-14Los Angeles85102-17
2014-15Chicago6762+5
2015-16Pittsburgh7767+10
2016-17Pittsburgh7873+5
2017-18Washington75750
2018-19St. Louis8060+20
2019-20Tampa Bay7586-11
2020-21Tampa Bay6863+5
2021-22Colorado6156+5

Sure, we could ponder the countless fallen teams that couldn’t overcome bad calls against them. The 2018-19 Vegas Golden Knights, done in by an all-time blown call in Game 7 of the first round, come to mind. But the point is: seven different champions in the cap era took more penalties than their opponents, and they still managed to win anyway.

As Michael Bunting could attest before his (highly justified) match penalty in Game 1 and ensuing three-game suspension, obsessing over officiating is a slippery slope toward self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you’re in the refs’ ears, it seems the less likely you are to get the benefit of the doubt.

And honestly: there’s no guarantee the Leafs do get the benefit of the doubt for the balance of this series. Maybe the calls will continue going Tampa’s way. In Game 2, they’ll have Eric Furlatt making the calls instead of McCauley – the same Eric Furlatt who made the infamous slashing call on Justin Holl in Game 7 last year. But if you fixate on that, you’re boarding the train to defeat. The best teams find a way to overcome adversity and win, whether that adversity is of their own creation due to poor discipline or because of bad luck from poor officiating.

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