Re: Boston University off-season thread (preparing for 16/17).
This game against PEI was about as over the top as I can remember. That being said we were equally guilty in the "goonery" as PEI was. It was almost as if neither coaching staff, nor the referees had control over their players.
To be fair to the players I don't think the penalties called were what they were expecting. Two players got majors and GMs for roughing, 24 more PIM than the expected 4 PIM. And late in the third a PEI player got a minor for roughing and a GM (and for which he was disbelieving) for 10 more PIM than expected. The refs also called penalties that impede a player far more then we have seen in a while: 7 inference, 4 hooking and 3 holding calls. These are not normally considered goonery. So well there was some rough play that was not the only reason there were so many PIM.
I reviewed all the games this weekend and looking at the penalties called for the 38 exhibition and 5 regular season games I think the games will be called tighter, but even more so I think there will be far more 5 minute majors called. Of the 43 games, at least one major was called in 25 of them and overall there were 57 majors called for 18 different penalties (one was not identified). Some were the ones we normally see called, such as hitting from behind, boarding and fighting, but many were ones rarely called, such as clipping, head-butting and slew footing, and several were for what we normally see called as 2 minute penalties such as cross-checking, slashing and roughing. Here is the list of the infractions that were given: facemasking (11), roughing (7), hitting from behind (6), fighting (6), cross-checking (5), high sticking (3), checking from behind (3), contact to the head (3), slashing (2), kneeing (2), charging the goalie (1), abuse of officials (1), head-butting (1), clipping (1), elbowing (1), boarding (1), slew footing (1), spearing (1). So even if a player takes what they think is a normal penalty they could be surprised with a 5 minute major and a GM (or DQ) instead of the expected 2 minute minor.
It will interesting to see what happens in the upcoming weeks.
Sean
