from Allan Maki of the Globe and Mail,
Had Detroit won in overtime, the NHL would have been turning 50 shades of blue. The work of its on-ice officials would have come under scrutiny. The media would have pounced; the players would have piled on. Forget about working another game; Walkom would have been lucky to get out of Chicago unscathed.
He was, after all, culpable on more than one front: he blew the whistle on matching minors scrubbing a play that ended with Chicago scoring. The penalties were on the opposite side of the rink and had no bearing on the action. And while Detroit’s Kyle Quincey deserved his roughing infraction for body slamming Chicago’s Brandon Saad to the ice, all Saad did was land in a heap. (“Worst call of the playoffs,” tweeted Paul Stastny of the Colorado Avalanche.)
At that moment, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman must have broken out in a rash thinking, “There goes our beautiful Conference finals involving the last four Stanley Cup winners. Who can I suspend for this?”
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