«Anyone who watched even just one period of the series knows how ridiculous that is. You don't keep McDavid to just four points in four games without committing some crimes along the way, especially with arguably the shallowest defence group in the playoffs. But it didn't matter if McDavid was held, hooked, tripped, kneed, mauled – which he repeatedly was throughout the series – because the referees looked the other way. Rachel Doerrie, formerly of the New Jersey Devils, rewatched every McDavid shift for the series and counted « over 30 » infractions that were missed, which sounds about right based on my own live viewing. McDavid earned zero.»
The insider makes it clear that he enjoys to see the players play, the «let them play» ethos and that playoff hockey is different. But he simply cannot wrap his head around the fact that McDavid drew no penalty during the series, almost blaming the officials for the Oilers' demise.
«This past season McDavid took 1,182 shifts, drawing 29 penalties. That means that, based on the standard set for his play, McDavid had a 2.5 percent chance of drawing a penalty on any given shift this season. Already that seems ridiculously conservative, but again, that's the standard. McDavid took 121 shifts in these playoffs over four games. Based on a normal distribution, the chances of drawing exactly zero penalties over a four-game series is just five percent. Not impossible, but highly unlikely that it happens by random chance. We can all use our eyes to see that «random chance» and «ignoring it» were the same thing in this series. McDavid had an eight percent chance of earning six or more calls over the series – which he had every single right to earn.»
Luszczyszyn is ready to be criticized for his statement, saying that many fans will use the «star treatment» to debate his position on McDavid. But to him, it does not matter: «The problem is that «star treatment» when it comes to the NHL is closer to Mario Kart than a league like the NBA (a league that understands its star players drive growth exponentially more than anything else and more often than not they /do/ deserve calls due to how much more skilled they are).»
