Sheldon says how the Tampa Bay Lightning manipulates officials. John Cooper says there would be no reason to do so based on how the string of physical accidents that would have seen his team’s power play have declined. Who is right? I suppose this is a matter of perspective and who you cheer for.
Saturday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning squared off (in more ways than one) in Game 3 of their first-round series, and things got a little muddled. After Nikita Kucherov skated a good 10 feet to check on Morgan Riley after Brayden Point was bumped to the boards and apparently injured, the Lightning decided to really ramp things up and Stephen Stamkos picked up a fight with Auston Matthews. What infuriated Leafs fans was that Stamkos was literally interacting with Matthews as he tried to pick up hockey sticks scattered all over the ice.
The team’s top scorers showed a willingness to catch a teammate at Brayden Point, said Brandon Hagel of the Lightning after the game.. “That’s why this team has been so successful.” Sheldon didn’t see it that way.
After the game, Keefe said, “It’s a classic example of a veteran championship team like Tampa Bay manipulating the umpires and taking advantage of the situation.” He noted that the Lightning knew Toronto was playing strong because of Kucherov’s situation. That’s when the veterans started fighting back and started to fight with the Maple Leafs players. These vets were smart enough to know the umpires wouldn’t take another penalty, Keefe claimed, so they pulled the Leafs men in. He thought the Leafs should have played strong 5-3, and not get away with taking Ryan O. Riley and Matthews go to the box with them. Note, “Awesome play by Lightning right there.”
Cooper has his own take on the fray
Cooper responded and said that Keefe’s reasoning doesn’t make sense and that it’s the lightning that’s most likely to get the power play. He explained, “But I will say this: When that strike happened, I think everyone watching in the house and everyone in the building, including us, thought we were going to be in for a power play.” He then asked, with that in mind, why would the best players in Stamkos and Kucherov so willingly put themselves in the box when the game could have been on the ice and possibly scored? As for Keefe’s claims about Tampa gouging the referees, he said, “I’m not sure what that means.” “It really worked against us,” he added.
Are these just games from both coaches? Or, does Keefe really believe what so many fans do, that officiating in the NHL playoffs so far has been a complete disaster? Every game has one side more unhappy than the other with the umpires, but in the first round so far, there have been an awful lot of games where the umpires have made questionable calls and the outcome of the games has been decided because of those calls.
Keefe might go out of his way to get the judges to question themselves and maybe make them face lightning. If an official thinks Tampa might be trying to pull the strings, his comments will be worth it. Meanwhile, Cooper tries to point out that the refs are too smart to fall for it. Also a sound strategy.
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