Mark Madden: Bad headlines detract from NHL's good stories during Stanley Cup playoffs

There’s been some dissatisfaction with the refereeing in the Stanley Cup playoffs. As ex-player Scottie Upshall advised the refs via Twitter:

“Put the whistles away. Let games be decided five-on-five. Tougher/bloodier teams win.”

Upshall, a winger, got drafted sixth overall in 2003. He cracked 20 goals just once in his 15 NHL seasons. He totaled a meager 138 goals in 759 career games. He never won the Stanley Cup, never played in a final.

No wonder Upshall wants grit to triumph. His pedigree and perceived skill let him down. It’s too often the marginal players who try to tell us what hockey should be. Let’s ask Mario Lemieux what he thinks.

Upshall has a podcast. Of course he does.

Sure, a bad call by a referee can decide a game. So can a non-call. That appears to be what Upshall and his ilk want.

If the officiating has been subpar in these playoffs, perhaps the refs have been overwhelmed by the amount of stupidity perpetrated.

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Steven Stamkos and Auston Matthews fought. Two of hockey’s very best players.

Boston goalie Linus Ullmark fought. He’s the presumptive Vezina Trophy winner as the NHL’s top goalie.

Toronto’s Michael Bunting knocked Tampa Bay’s Erik Cernak out of that series with a shot to the head that likely made Matt Cooke cringe. (Bunting got suspended three games.)

The New York Islanders’ J-G Pageau broke the hand of Carolina’s Teuvo Teravainen with a big slash. No penalty, no suspension. Teravainen won’t play again in that series.

The Islanders’ Matt Martin could be criminally charged after almost every shift.

Superstar defenseman Cale Makar of Colorado wet his beak in the idiocy, clocking Seattle’s Jared McCann with a vicious, Dale Hunter-esque hit away from the puck that took McCann out of that series. A major penalty was initially called but got inexplicably changed to a minor.

Upshall must have participated in the review. Or maybe TV’s between-periods talking heads did. They want to downgrade every penalty. They would have plea-bargained Ted Bundy down to manslaughter, perhaps aggravated assault.

Makar is the reigning Norris Trophy winner as the NHL’s best defenseman. Why would he do that? (He got a one-game suspension.)

These are all bad headlines. They detract from the good stories.

Some of this dumbness has a perverse payoff: Cernak is a top-four defenseman. McCann is Seattle’s top goal-scorer.

Eliminating good players seems to be a tactic in the playoffs. Like when the Penguins’ Sidney Crosby had nine points in the first four games of last year’s first-round series with the New York Rangers, then got his head targeted in Game 5 by the Rangers’ Jacob Trouba. Crosby left that game, missed Game 6, and the series turned around.

The Rangers won, but what price victory?

“Any price” would be the answer of a typical NHL player. That’s echoed by hockey’s talking heads on TV. We’re told that it’s a man’s game, especially this time of year.

OK, but maybe that’s why hockey ranks seventh among the four major sports.

The NCAA women’s basketball final got 9.92 million viewers. Game broadcasts over the first four nights of the Stanley Cup playoffs averaged 668,000.

The NCAA women’s basketball final was decidedly not a man’s game. Nobody targeted a foe’s head, either.

It gets worse: The XFL’s regular-season games averaged 622,000 viewers. Minor-league football isn’t far behind hockey’s showcase time of year.

The NFL always fixes itself. MLB changed its game drastically and for the better this season. The NHL plays to its weaknesses while regarding them as strengths. Hockey won’t ever lose its core audience, nor will it ever go beyond a niche sport.

Hockey won’t ever change. The NHL’s GMs and Canadian old guard run hockey. What we’re seeing is what they want.

Except they want the refs to call even less.