Lazarowich: Playoff games not called differently than regular season

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Suggest to Brad Lazarowich that the officiating standard in the NHL changes from the regular season to the playoffs and he’ll undoubtedly find that a gross misconduct.

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“They aren’t calling it differently. I know that’s the perception, but it’s not correct,” said Lazarowich, 61, the BCHL’s vice-president of hockey operations who spent 30 years in the NHL as a linesman and worked 204 post-season games in that span, including three Stanley Cup Finals series. 

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“What changes, though, is that the intensity raises up. What every game means raises up. A normal hit in the corner that nobody cared about on a Tuesday night in November now means everything. That hit is judged so much more. The hooking penalty that a team takes with three minutes to go in a close game and is a great call is still judged that much more. 

“The players ramp up their game. One game can change a series. One game can change an entire playoffs.”

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Questioning the decision making of referees and linesmen in the NHL playoffs can feel like a national pastime. Google “Does the standard of officiating change in the NHL playoffs,” and you get over 600,000 hits. 

Canadian Press did a story last April a mere nine days into the post-season that included “the annual discussion about officiating in the NHL playoffs is well underway.”

It also had quotes from current Vancouver Canucks winger Sam Lafferty, who at that time was with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He spoke about how knowing the individual tendencies of the referees was a bonus before adding that “every game evolves differently. You’ve got to be ready to adapt.”

Lazarowich, a North Delta native who retired from the NHL in 2016, says that he understands the scrutiny. Some of the best advice he got during his career came from then NHL director of officiating Terry Gregson, a former referee who told Lazarowich to avoid looking at any of the news coverage during a series.

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“Don’t go online. Don’t read the paper. Don’t get up the next day and click on TSN and listen to what they’re saying,” Lazarowich recalled of Gregson’s messaging. “You have to block that stuff out. You need to stay focused.”

The NHL Officials Association lists 35 full-time referees and 35 full-time linesmen. Twenty referees and 20 linesmen start with playoff assignments. For the Stanley Cup Finals, there are only five referees and five linesmen still at work.

Lazarowich’s first Stanley Cup Final came in 2001, when the Colorado Avalanche beat the New Jersey Devils in a series best known for Joe Sakic immediately handing the chalice to Ray Bourque in the post-game celebration.

“I had worked so hard. I had knocked on the door. I think I had got to the third round four years in a row,” said Lazarowich, who went into the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2017. “I was thinking: Is this the year? Is this the year? It has to go pretty smoothly for you to get there. You have to have the breaks.

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“Most officials don’t get to the Finals. I hate this perception that it’s a rotation. It’s not. We’ve earned it. It’s this moment for us. Most guys are lucky to get 50-80 playoff games in their career.”

The officiating crews will meet with the series supervisor before every playoff game to go over trends. They’ll look at things like whether there’s an exorbitant amount of crashing the net or there’s a higher than normal number of scrums after whistles. They’ll take the temperature of the series, so to speak.

“The guys are so dialed in with what’s going on with the meetings they have with supervisors and just internally as a crew,” he said. “We’re no different than the players. We’ll meet and we’ll go through many, many things.”

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He’s in charge of the referees and linesmen in the BCHL and he’s kept with the preparation ideals, having a one-on-one phone call with every official the day of every playoff game. Early on in this post-season, he had some 40 phone call days.

“I went through all those meetings, so I know what to touch on and what to leave alone,” Lazarowich said. 

He joined the BCHL in the 2012-13 season as co-director of officiating while he was still active in the NHL.

@SteveEwen

SEwen@postmedia.com

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