Lose a one-goal game on the road and somebody is always going to swear the referees stole it. That's what happened after Tampa Bay beat Minnesota 3-2 on Thursday, with Wild fans insisting the officials let the Lightning spear Jared Spurgeon and cross-check their way through the night uncalled. It's a tidy story. It falls apart the moment you check it against what happened on the ice.
Start with the spearing claim, since it's the loudest one. No recap or official scoring summary from the game lists a spearing minor, major or match penalty against anyone in a Lightning sweater. The only contact logged on Spurgeon in the event sheet is a pair of ordinary, clean hits. If a referee missed an actual spear, that's a real grievance. Nobody can point to the moment because it didn't happen. This is a group of angry fans needing somewhere to put the anger.
The cross-checking complaint is worse. It's impossible. The version going around names Mattias Ekholm as the Wild defenseman who got cross-checked and ignored. Ekholm doesn't play for Minnesota. He's an Edmonton Oiler who wasn't in the building, let alone on the ice, for this game. You can't build a case about a missed call on a player who wasn't there. That detail made it into the conversation anyway, and nobody checked it first.
Now look at what the box score says about who the referees were actually leaning on. Minnesota took three minor penalties Thursday night: Jonas Brodin for interference, Michael McCarron and Zach Bogosian both for holding. Tampa Bay took two. Each team scored once on the power play. If you want to argue the stripes had a thumb on the scale, the numbers point the other way from where the anger is pointing.
None of that means Minnesota should feel good about the first period. It was the sloppiest stretch of an otherwise better effort, and it's why the Wild spent the whole night chasing the game. It doesn't mean Jesper Wallstedt should carry this loss either. He stopped 32 shots after his team spotted the other side a two-goal lead just past the six-minute mark, and he's been the best player on this roster through the start of the season. Quinn Hughes played more than anyone on the ice, scored, set up Minnesota's second goal, and is clearly being leaned on more than a defenseman should be four games into a season. That workload is worth worrying about. It has nothing to do with the referees.
Blaming the officials instead of the bench is a way of avoiding the obvious: Minnesota outchanced and outworked a team starting a goalie making his first appearance in a new sweater, couldn't finish, and gave up two goals just past the six-minute mark that put it behind for good. Dennis Hildeby stopped 34 shots in his Lightning debut and won. The story here is a team that needs more than two players to carry it, and fans who'd rather argue with a zebra than admit that.
