Ex-Red Wing Aaron Ward tears the NHL a new one

On a night that the National Hockey League wanted to present itself to the world in the form of their new "Frozen Frenzy" setup, they fell way short in one particular matchup. 

By now, you've likely seen the major infraction that the Seattle Kraken were somehow allowed to get away with during last night's game at Little Caesars Arena against the host Detroit Red Wings. Kraken forward Jayden Schwartz disrupted a prime scoring opportunity by Olli Maatta when the former thew his stick as the latter was preparing to one-time the puck. Not only was no penalty called as the rule book stats, but Seattle would score a goal to take a two-goal lead just seconds later. 

And the fact that all four on-ice officials somehow missed this was beyond frustrating not only to the fans, but to former Red Wings Stanley Cup-winning defenseman Aaron Ward, who wrote the following on his X (formerly Twitter) account: 

"What an absolute embarrassment for a ‘Professional League’ on a night that they hyped themselves having every team playing and every fan hopefully watching. You give them this. Most basic of all calls at the Learn To Play level. Simple call, can’t throw your stick, not even debatable. Hockey fan, we have to stop making fun of basketball for all forms of traveling when we didn’t call this. It’s only made better that the offending team scores right after this."

Head coach Derek Lalonde would state that he was given a "mea culpa" by the referees at the end of the second period, but that did little to appease those who were frustrated at the marginal penalty called on Dylan Larkin late in regulation that enabled Seattle to tie the score at four and eventually win in overtime. 

Ward is right on the money with his viewpoint - the NHL needs to fix their officiating.

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