The Florida Panthers and Toronto Maple Leafs had one of the more confusing sequences of penalties in recent memory. It started when a player’s pass to his goalie’s stick accidentally hit a Panthers skater, who then knocked the stick aside. The refs called interference, saying it looked intentional. Both benches were stunned. One Leafs player just skated to the box on his own, only for the refs to huddle up and reverse the call. After discussions about who did what, they eventually pinned the penalty on a Panthers player who didn’t seem to do much at all. It looked like the player got punished simply for looking guilty.
Later in the second period, chaos continued. A three-on-two rush for Toronto ended with a heavy collision near the net. No goal, but the net came off and the goalie went down. The ref called charging. Again, confusion followed. The Panthers bench tried to make sense of it but couldn’t. The coach watched replays on the monitor, trying to figure out what his player was actually being punished for. Even fans and people around the bench seemed more amused than angry. That penalty led to a Maple Leafs goal. After the game, the Panthers coach said the calls weren’t about his players’ actions and blamed personal history with the official. That, in turn, got him fined by the NHL.