@BuzzFledderjohn, why don’t you check into it rather than blindly assuming?

It’ll be a bit tough as I don’t know where you can find team totals but I do know you can find it by individual game per team:
http://www.nhl.com/nhlstats/app?formids=PropertySelection_9,PropertySelection_10,PropertySelection_11,PropertySelection_12,Submit_1&component=reportBuilder.$Form_1&page=Home&service=direct&submitmode=submit&submitname;=&PropertySelection_9=0&PropertySelection_10=0&PropertySelection_11=0&PropertySelection_12=5&Submit_1=Get+Stats

That looks like a lot of minor penalties but I didn’t compare to any other team.

Posted by Shane from Saskatoon on 02/11/08 at 10:42 AM ET

Now as far the all this crying from duckland about the Ducks being the most penalized team… Fact: The Ducks are undisciplined. If you don’t want to go to jail, then don’t break the law, stupid!

This was only brought up to counter the comment that referees are trying to win games for the Ducks.  If the Ducks are getting favoritism, feel free to take it off our hands, please!

We SHOULD be discussing how many minor penalties the teams take, putting them a man down on the ice.

That is true, but the trend isn’t really different.  This season the Ducks have been shorthanded 306 times, which is 41 more times than 2nd place Chicago.

Yes, the Ducks are dirty, and maybe not every single thing gets called.  But conspiracy?  Please!  Anaheim’s getting its share of “reputation” calls as well, probably to a greater degree than Detroit is.

Posted by Earl Sleek on 02/11/08 at 10:53 AM ET

Yes, the Ducks are dirty, and maybe not every single thing gets called.  But conspiracy?  Please!  Anaheim’s getting its share of “reputation” calls as well, probably to a greater degree than Detroit is.

That’s what I meant by not assuming a conspiracy when simple incompetence will do.

Officials in any game you might see will sometimes call penalties based on what they assumed happened, or on what the might have expected to happen instead of what they actually saw, and it makes for a horrible arbitray nature to penalty calls - just as a star player is going to get less of a suspension than a realative nobady for a dirty hit, and if a star is taken out there will be more of an outcry than if a less significant player is deliberately injured - especially if based on his reputation he is thought to have “deserved it.”

I just wish that officials would call what they see, and if they didn’t see a penalty, DON’T CALL IT!!!!

And if you do screw up, at least apologize afterwards for the bad call.

Maybe, instead of contracting teams to fit the supposed level of talent in the player ranks, the league should be contracted to fit the amount of competent officiating available.  How many teams would there be then?

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 02/11/08 at 11:25 AM ET

(Sorry for all the typos - my fingers haven’t warmed up yet.) :(

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 02/11/08 at 11:26 AM ET

George, you make excellent points.  Yes, I was very irritated by that game yesterday.  This is what makes me think a rivalry is brewing (maybe just in my own head) becaue I have not been that irritated after a regular season game since the hey days for the Wings/Avs rivalry.  There were garbage calls and non-calls on both sides.  The thing that bothers me most is the lack of passion the Wings have showed lately. Is this a case of too good, too early? 

My boyfriend keeps telling me the Wings are a lock for the Cup and I tell him to please stop saying that because I consider it a jinx.  I remember 95 and 96 all too well.  He is still a hockey newbie but trying very hard to learn (he even got NHL Center Ice over at his house for me!).

Posted by hockeychic from Denver, CO on 02/11/08 at 11:29 AM ET

I hate it when my fellow Wings fans force me to turn against their ignorance and actually agree with a Duckie, but Earl is right, again. TSH is a real easy stat to find… and guess what it tells us? The Ducks are down a man the most!

Ducks games are not rigged, 2-Pac is not alive, and a wall will not keep illegal immigrants out. The end.

Posted by Nathan on 02/11/08 at 12:02 PM ET

Maybe, instead of contracting teams to fit the supposed level of talent in the player ranks, the league should be contracted to fit the amount of competent officiating available.  How many teams would there be then?

Baroque, that’s definitely one of those comments that makes you laugh at first, then makes you think second.  That approach isn’t a half bad idea...I’m not a supporter of contraction, only because I don’t think too many teams or non-hockey markets is the problem.  But I think contracting the season down from 82 games to 60 or 65, but still spread from October through April, would solve a LOT of problems. Injury, fatigue, mid-season doldrums...and it would reduce the overall number of games, which means fewer refs would be necessary if the League scheduled it right. (I don’t need to see all 30 teams in action in a single night...what’s the point?)

Players have to excel if they want ice time...why shouldn’t the refs?

Posted by Gabriel from San Diego, CA on 02/11/08 at 12:08 PM ET

If nothing else, Gabriel, it would get rid of the plethora of “three games in three cities in four nights” stretches, and that couldn’t help but improve the hockey if players on both sides were more likely to be rested and performing to the best of their abilities.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 02/11/08 at 12:52 PM ET

Yeah, and you Detroit fans say that Ducks fan whine too much… holy crap… Ducks cheated the cap, Ducks are dirty etc… Shut it already

Posted by HapaGuy from ANAHEIM CA on 02/13/08 at 11:42 AM ET

you Detroit fans say that Ducks fan whine too much

Welcome Hapa.  Let me clear something up for you.  In all the conversations, all the posts, all the poultry references made here, I can’t find a single one criticizing duck fans--no matter what your imagination leads you to believe.

As a matter of fact, other than Earl Sleek--who we all respect--I don’t know that fans of poultry have ever been discussed or even considered here.

Now, as for your ex-captain who held his team hostage, your current captain who is a piece of garbage dimwit who can barely speak much less control himself on the ice, your punk agitator whose lucky Aaron Downey didn’t find himself on the ice at the same time as him, or your “enforcer” whose ass Downey did kick?  Yeah, we’ve discussed them.

But duck fans?  Nope.  Never considered to be worthy of more than a sentence here.  Until now.

Posted by IwoCPO from Washington, DC on 02/13/08 at 11:55 AM ET