After four games, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens have each taken an NHL-leading 32 minor penalties. They have also combined for nine power play goals. That's a significant number in a series where each time has scored a total of 11 times.
MONTREAL - A day after Martin St. Louis revealed that his favorite way to unwind after a game is by binge-watching episodes of Seinfeld, mostly because it's a show about nothing, the Montreal Canadiens coach might have wanted to channel his inner Frank Costanza and scream, "Serenity now!" with how the officiating went in a 3-2 loss to Tampa Bay in Game 4.
There were 17 total penalties called on Sunday night. Of those, 11 were stick infractions.
On the plus side, you cannot blame either Brandon Blandina or Wes McCauley for missing a single call all night. However, the pair of referees might have created at least penalty out of thin air — and it probably cost the Canadiens the game.
"I think we put ourselves in situations where there's a chance the refs are going to call a penalty," said St. Louis. "That's a veteran team. They're very good at drawing penalties. They've got talented players. They're a tough team. We knew it was going to be a tough series. We're right in it. We're in a battle. There's a fine line between winning and losing in these games. But we're battling.
"We could have had more composure, for sure. Especially when you're ahead, you want to have composure."
It's not a stretch to say that penalties caused momentum to change in a game that Montreal seemed in control of.
The Canadiens were leading 2-1 to start the third period when Montreal's Oliver Kapanen was called for high-sticking on Tampa Bay's Dominic James. Upon further review, Kapanen's stick might not have actually made contact with James, even if the Lightning forward threw his head back and brought his glove to his face.
Either way, the Lightning went on the power play and Nikita Kucherov found Brandon Hagel with a cross-crease pass to tie the game 2-2.
"It's definitely frustrating," said Matheson. "But you can't control it. You can get upset about it, but it's not really going to help you win games."
Later on in the period, after killing off a 5-on-3 power play for another high-sticking penalty and a cross-checking penalty that might have been helped out by some embellishment from Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay took advantage of some tired Canadiens legs and took the lead.
When asked if he knew what the standard was for penalties, Matheson said: "That's a good question. I think we're wondering ourselves."
Tampa Bay led the NHL in the regular season with 1,207 penalty minutes — 229 more than the next-most penalized team — so maybe their reputation has caused the officials to adopt a stricter standard. If so, blame the players for a lack of restraint and being undisciplined when they know that the refs are calling literally everything.
At the same time, you don't want the officials deciding who wins a game. And so far, the officials are playing a big part in the outcome of this series.
"It's going on both sides, too," said Kaiden Guhle. "There's a lot of stick penalties on both sides. Refs are looking for it. We talked about it. A couple of high sticks that are just weird plays, guy's face gets in the way. It's nothing you can really do about it."
And it's not just the fans, who spent the night chanting "refs, you suck!", who want the refs to put away their whistles.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper didn't try to hide his emotions on the bench, when Jake Guentzel was called for slashing after he tried tried to poke loose the puck on a save from Jakub Dobes. And he certainly wasn't happy when the Canadiens scored on the ensuing penalty.
"Is there footage of me?" asked Cooper. "I got frustrated a couple of times."