To say the game between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Montreal Canadiens last night was contentious is an understatement. The refereeing on display last night, especially from Chris Lee, was appalling and was widely debated.
While nearly everybody was in agreeance that Lee did a horrendous job throughout the entire game, former NHL referee Stephane Auger disagreed and tried to stick up for his former colleague. This resulted in Canadiens reporter Renaud Lavoie to step in and try to give his piece, but before he could he was quickly dismissed by Auger who said he was stopping him there. Lavoie, clearly irritated by this, barked back that Auger had gotten to speak for five minutes already and it was now his turn to talk.
This back and forth continued on for several minutes. Despite Lavoie asking countless times about Lee's overall performance, Auger refused to comment on it and instead continuously mentioned that the two were friends, and that he wasn't the worst ref on the ice over the past two games.
It is rare to see hosts on TV go at each other like these two did, but it seemed most were in agreeance with Lavoie. While you can understand Auger wanting to defend a former colleague, it was pretty clear to everybody watching Sunday night's game that the officiating was abysmal.
One thing that should be noted in all this was that Auger was not highly regarded when it came to his officiating. Throughout his 13 seasons in the league, he was known by many as one of the NHL's worst referees. On top of that, he was involved in some serious controversy after former Vancouver Canuck Alex Burrows alleged that Auger had a personal vendetta against him and once told him before a game he was going to «get him» for an incident that had occurred earlier in the season. After this comment, it became clear he was going out of his way to call penalties on Burrows that should have gone uncalled, and many believe it played a role in his sudden departure from the league.
