Subban gets very aggressive with a referee after time has expired.

This is not a good look for the Las Vegas Golden Knights or their backup goaltender.

On Sunday night the Las Vegas Golden Knights faced off against the Calgary Flames in what was a very hotly contested game, at least through the first two periods of play. The Flames would eventually pull away in the game's third period winning by a margin of 6 - 3 but the real story on the night came during the game's 2nd intermission.

There was less than 30 seconds to go in the second period when the Calgary Flames scored a late go ahead goal that Las Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Malcom Subban felt should not have counted. The puck was deflected in front of the net by Calgary Flames veteran forward Mikael Backlund and although there was some very minor contact made with the glove of Malcolm Subban on the play I really do not see a scenario where a call of goaltender interference would have been justified here. Nonetheless Subban clearly felt very strongly about the lack of a call and after time had expired in the second period he left his net to go confront the National Hockey League's officials on the ice.

The official Subban would eventually confront was NHL referee Dan O'Halloran and almost immediately this confrontation took on a very aggressive tone. Many have been quick to criticize Subban here for getting right up in the face of an NHL referee, but it seemed like both men were yelling at one another here and it seems to me like both could have behaved in a much more professional fashion here. 

At one point it even appeared as though Subban intended to strike O'Halloran, or at least intimidate him by giving him the impression that he was going to do so, and that was the final straw for the NHL referee. O'Halloran immediately signaled that Subban had been awarded a minor penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct and that seemed to be the end of it. 

Interestingly enough though former NHLer Dan Carcillo had some comments to make about this incident, suggesting that O'Halloran has a reputation for misstreating players and directly implying that he may have played a bigger role in this situation that initially appears.

"Never said anything about him not deserving the minor penalty.  Expressing my extremely bias opinion of Dan from playing 9 seasons. He has small man syndrome," wrote Carcillo.

"He is extremely unapproachable and likes to big time guys."

Carcillo fully admitted that his personal bias comes into play here, but it is interesting nonetheless. It will be even more interesting to see if O'Halloran ends up calling a Golden Knights series in the postseason.

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