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

Hockey East Ref Corsi Espisode III

It is the best time of year in Hockey East. The weather is warming up, playoff hockey is starting and I get to write my annual recap of the officiating in the league. As I displayed last year, I am capable of saying nice things about the refs when they deserve it. Now, before I get into the numbers aka ref corsi, I will be the first to acknowledge the flaws in how I track the numbers and rank the refs. The only numbers available are the refs who work the games and the total number of penalties called so that is all that I have to work with. This obviously penalizes refs who get a game with a line brawl or paired with Kevin Shea when he gets BU a ref who happens to have an off night and try to make the game about him. I will be the first to acknowledge that the refs have a tough job and it is impossible to placate all the fans or even all the coaches but overall they do a pretty good job. Last year, I  they called the second least amount of penalty minutes of any conference so they obviously aren't too bad.

This is the second straight year BU was called for more penalty minutes than their opponent. They had 47 more penalty minutes this year(384-337) as opposed to only 23 more penalty minutes than their opponents last year. This is most likely a result of Jordan Greenway being on the roster and getting called for the Gryba "too big" bullshit penalties. Basically the refs feel bad when big guys physically dominate their opponents and call more penalties on them because of it. I'm not saying the refs purposefully are calling more penalties on Greenway than he deserves but they definitely are calling penalties on him due to his size and the fact that other teams hate him for embarrassing them.