Sutherland has a long history of making questionable calls to say the least. Things have been particularly bad with the Vancouver Canucks in the past, as the veteran official seems to have a personal vendetta against the team. One fan brought up a specific incident from years ago involving Daniel Sedin.
There have been a long history of questionable calls Sutherland has made involving the Canucks, including this hit on JT Miller from the regular season, which was called a minor penalty, much to the chagrin of Canucks fans.
Its not just Canucks fans that have a problem with Sutherland though. Other fanbases have pointed out terrible calls the referee has made. One fan noted this incident in game two between the Rangers and Hurricanes this year that involved Matt Rempe, who got a stern talking to from Sutherland after doing literally nothing wrong.
One fan went so far as to call Sutherland the 'league's ref.' This suggests that the NHL is deliberately assigning Sutherland to games where the league wants a specific result, hoping that he can help them achieve that goal with specific calls in the game.
Hopefully, Sutherland's shenanigans won't have an impact on tonight's game, but we will just have to see how it unfolds.
Source: MarkerzoneNHL referee Kelly Sutherland accused of possibly fixing games
POLL | ||
10 MAI | 636 ANSWERS Controversial referee set to call game two between Canucks and Oilers Do you think Kelly Sutherland has a bias against the Vancouver Canucks? | ||
Yes | 463 | 72.8 % |
No | 173 | 27.2 % |
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