BAY STATE (ROAD) SPORTS: 2016-2017 Hockey East Officiating Recap #RefCorsi

Friday, August 25, 2017

2016-2017 Hockey East Officiating Recap #RefCorsi

The 2016-2017 season was another one for the record books in Hockey East. Sure the conference had plenty of great players but the real stars on the ice once again were the people everyone pays to come see, the officials. Now I don't mean to be too rude to the refs since I scream at them enough during the season from my seat but pointing out trends of incompetence is one of my favorite summer activities hence why you have the 4th annual ref corsi post(last year's post).

Hockey East had an average of 24.69 penalty minutes called in games which were called by Hockey East officials last year(excluding the NCAA tournament). This is up 2.09 minutes/game from 2015-2016 numbers and up 4.5 minutes per game from the 2014-2015 season. The disparity between penalties called on BU and their opponents has also increased in each of the last three years as BU was called for 23 more penalty minutes than their opponents in 2014-2015, 39 in 2015-2016 and 54 in 2016-2017. I don't want to say this is all on the officials(only like 97% Koharski's fault). Some of it does fall on Kieffer Bellows trying to take every possible stick penalty there is in the rule book for the first half of last season. Maybe this disparity is because the refs don't like this post in which case I guess this is all my fault. Without further ado here are the rankings:

*Only referees who called 10 or more games were counted in these rankings

1. Thomas Quinn- 28.92 pms/game +11.7pms/game- Now most BU fans are used to having a guy named Quinn being #1 in their hearts but this isn't a situation where being at the top is a good thing. This was a bad year for Quinny. Some might say the 13-14 BU team of reffing seasons. Fun fact about Quinn though is he called the exact same number of games this year as last year(13).
2. Tim Benedetto- 26.12 pms/game +2.4- Old friend Timmy enjoys another year in the top 10 of penalty minutes called. After years of watching him calls games, I am starting to feel for him. I think he just always get games with the whistle happy guys *cough Shea and Hansen cough*
3. Jack Millea- 25.65 pms/game +3.0- Jack is the workhorse of HE officials. Doing over 31 games this past year after doing 27 last year. The real question is the rise in penalty minutes called a concerning trend or just a one year fluke of working with the donkey refs in the league(see more on the donkeys below)
4. Kevin Shea- 25.64 pms/game +4.9- Last year I actually said something nice about one of my archrivals KShea and this is how he repays me. The only explanation for this is that I didn't yell at him enough this past season to keep him honest. This will be corrected this coming year as a favor to him and all HE fans.
5. Jamie Koharski- 25.64 pms/game +3.8- The son of a NHL ref actually had a pretty good year outside of the 3-4 BU games he did in the second half of the season. For whatever reason, he called everything and anything against BU to the point the crowd was full on booing him on and off the ice(not just me). Very sad to see this happen to a guy with a family pedigree in refereeing. Some are now questioning whether he still has it.
6. Scott Hansen- 25.56 pms/game +3.8- Hansen is the one ref in the league to give Quinn a penalty that I can remember over the last few season so he automatically sucks.
7. Geoff Miller- 25.46 pms/game -2.0- For all the crap I give Miller on Twitter, he actually had one of the biggest drops in penalty minutes called this past season. Congrats to Miller to responding to constructive criticism the right way.

BU is playing like shit and Geoff Miller is finding a way to ref even worse #millerlowlife
— BayState RoadSports (@bsrs_blog) January 25, 2017

8. Thomas Fryer- 25.25 pms/game +3.1- Fryer's penalty minutes called may gone up but he still goes down as the ref with the coolest last name
9. Chris Federico- 25.19 pms/game +10.0- The second biggest jump in the field goes to a middle of the pack guy as he had the fewest penalty minutes called of any HE ref last season so he had nowhere to go but up(not good in this case)
10. Michael Baker- 24.5 pms/game -3.6- The 2nd biggest drop in the league goes to the Bake man himself as his high numbers dropped over 13% from last season to this one.
11. Terrence Murphy- 23.88 pms/game - 4.6- Murph is another ref who brought the A+ effort in trying to improve this year
t12. Tim Low- 23.58 pms/game + 2.5- T Low has easily got the most swagga in the league for all refs. Something about watching him coming bopping to the music out of the tunnel is hilarious and he is always in the bottom half of pms called so its a win win.
t12. Andy O'Brien- 23.58 pms.game +8.4- OB is one of the best in the business since he stays out of the way. The large increase in penalties called is still a red flag to me though. Hopefully he isn't getting too cocky out there.
14. John Gravalese- 23.1 pms/game -0.7- Grav is basically a living legend at this point. I used to hate him but he has grown on me as he has gotten older
15. Jeff Bunyon- 22.7 pms/game + 5.4- Bunyon is a real enigma out there. To see him down towards the bottom of penalty minutes called two years in a row is baffling since it is the same guy who threw out Coach Parker in 2012 when he was nothing but polite to him.
16. Stephen McInchak- 21.57 pms/game N/A- His first year in the rankings since he usually doesn't call enough games to qualify.
17. Peter Schliddernhart- 21.45 pms/game -3.9- Schliddernhart was the second most improved this past season and should be recognized for it. Give the man a cookie
18. Kevin Keenan- 20.44 pms/game - 2.5- KK is the king of Hockey East refs this year. He is the Jack Eichel of the reffing world now. People will be showing up in droves for games that he is calling and going "damn there goes Kevin Keenan defending BSRS ref corsi champion".

**shoutout to Cam Voss who may not be calling HE games anymore but is not forgotten #2015BeanpotFinal