The Impossibility of Consistent Officiating as Perfectly Illustrated in the Stars/Jets Series

There's a lot to be considered when you, uh, consider what's happened in five games

Note the puck mark on the mask over Jake Oettinger’s mouth.

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In Game 5, the Winnipeg Jets kept their season alive by winning 4-0. They did so by scoring a 4-on-4 goal, a 5-on-3 goal, a 5-on-4 goal, and a 6-on-5 empty-net goal, as they earned a win that many outlets were calling their best game of the playoffs.

Still, the Stars didn’t give up a single 5-on-5 goal in that game. So despite the scoreline, and despite and being outshot 22-9 through 40 minutes, the Stars don’t feel they were as badly outplayed as the four-goal disparity would suggest.

“Look, it's a 0-0 game, we had an own goal go in off our skate and a 5-on-3 goal,” said Pete DeBoer on Friday. “Those are the goals that are that were scored last night. So there's not a lot of offense out there. And you've gotta to keep doing the little things and stay patient within the game, wait for a look.”

In fact, Dallas did have looks of their own, including a power play after the fracas that saw Jamie Benn punch Mark Scheifele in the face, for which he received a $5,000 fine, in addition to a 10-minute midconduct penalty and a two-minute roughing minor.

Still, when all was said and done, the Stars came out of that mess with two minutes on the job. Unsurprisingly, Jets head coach Scott Arniel said after Game 5 on Thursday that he wasn’t happy about that call.

“I mean, we’re the ones who are up in the game,” Anriel said. “I didn’t think we should have come out of that pileup having the extra minor.”

When told of Arniel’s comment, DeBoer said he knows that feeling.

“I don't understand how we've been shorthanded a lot of times in the playoffs,” DeBoer quipped on Friday.

Earlier in the series, DeBoer admitted that the team has talked about taking fewer penalties as much as they can, even joking at one point that they might need to try the penalty equivalent of a swear jar to collect money from players who take penalties.

And when you consider that all of three of Winnipeg’s goals (past a goaltender) in Game 5 happened with a Dallas player (or two) in the penalty box, it makes sense to reduce the penalties they take.

“Well, we've got to work on it,” DeBoer said. “But, you know, doesn't make a lot of sense when you're the least-penalized team in the league last season. You know we haven't changed our style of play. So, you know, we'll have to work within what's being called.”

DeBoer is referring to 2023-24, when the Stars recorded the lowest total of penalties in minutes (PIM) in the league with just 554. In the 2024-25 regular season, they recorded the sixth-lowest, with 572.¹ But in the postseason, the Stars have taken 54 penalties in just 12 games, the fourth-highest total among playoff teams.

As for that “work within what’s being called” part of DeBoer’s statement, you might give him credit for showing some restraint. Because through five games, the Jets have received 21 power plays, and the Stars have gotten just 15. That has worked out to more than one extra power play per game for Winnipeg, who are still down 3-2 in the series.²

In the playoffs as a whole, Dallas has taken an average of 4.4 penalties per 60 minutes, which is a huge leap from their regular season average of 3.1 penalties per 60. And those haven’t been empty-calorie penalties either, as they’ve included penalties at critical times like the end of regulation in Games 2 and 3 against Colorado, where Dallas had to come up with huge kills that allowed them to win those games in overtime.

The Stars have had to adjust to a rarity int he playoffs: more penalties than they’re used to, rather than the “let ‘em play” canard that most fans use during the postseason. But thanks to Alain Nasredinne’s penalty kill, the Stars have weathered the storm of penalties they’ve taken, even with its increased frequency.

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Despite the wild swings that come with the transition from regular season to postseason play, the NHL still emphasizes consistency within a single series when it comes to officiating. That’s tricky when you have different officiating crews working every game, as opposed to sports like baseball, where the same umpiring team officiates each series with the umpires rotating bases after each game.

A big part of that desired consistency comes from the playoff officiating supervisors, who are generally former NHL referees assigned to oversee each series. Those supervisors meet with each team’s head coach and GM on the morning of every game day, before then meeting with the officials tasked with working the game.

Typically, those meetings are a chance for each team to voice concerns to the supervisor about ongoing issues they see, which he then relays to the officials (while adding his own insight and context, one would assume).

Faceoffs are a common focus of these discussions, particularly if another team’s center is getting away with some shenanigans that are giving his team an unfair advantage. Ongoing antipathy between specific players is often brought up, too.

Per Scouting the Refs, the supervisor for the Dallas/Winnipeg series is Don Van Massenhoven, one of the most respected NHL officials of his day. The 6’5” former referee (and former Ontario police officer) had many notable moments in his career, but the support he received from Mario Lemiuex after a blown call is a very touching reminder of the special relationship that exists between players and officials in the NHL.

One issue that the Stars brought up with Van Massenhoven after Game 5 was the inconsistency in face-off locations after a puck was blown dead because of a goaltender’s mask issue.