Sheldon Keefe loses it over referee Wes McCauley... again.

Wes McCauley may be the most hated man in Toronto.

Jonathan Larrivee
Jonathan Larrivee
Published 1 year ago
Sheldon Keefe loses it over referee Wes McCauley... again.
Ludvig Thunman/Bildbyran/Zuma

Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe and National Hockey League referee Wes McCauley have not always seen eye to eye. So much so in fact that the disagreements between the two men have led to Keefe being fined as recently as earlier this season, but on Sunday night the source of Keefe's frustration was once again on full display.

McCauley was officiating Sunday night's game between the aforementioned Maple Leafs and the Washington Capitals when once again he found himself at the center of a minor controversy. The controversy stemmed from a phantom high-sticking call that McCauley made against Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, one that would lead to a Maple Leafs penalty.

To be clear there was a high-stick on the play and it did in fact strike Capitals forward Conor Sheary right in the face, the problem though was that the stick wasn't Dahlin's but rather that of Sheary's own teammate. Here's a look at the initial call:

As you may have guessed, Keefe wasn't too happy about yet another blown call from McCauley and he was clearly using language I won't be repeating here.

While it might be easy to brush this off as stuff that sometimes happens when playing in a sport as physical and as fast as hockey, it's also easy to see why the Leafs are particularly frustrated with McCauley. Remember that fine I mentioned earlier? Here is the incident that led to Keefe exploding on McCauley back in December, another high-sticking controversy.

Keefe wasn't too pleased at the time of this earlier incident either.

Something tells me we haven't seen the last of the disagreements between these two.

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