Stars' Tyler Seguin shamelessly embellishes punch to face for penalty
Last night in game two, Stars forward Tyler Seguin sold out with a brutal dive to draw a penalty in front of the Oilers net.
While battling for position with Darnell Nurse in front of the net, Nurse's hand brushed Seguin in the logo of the jersey - but he acted like he took a full punch to the face. Incredibly, Nurse received a penalty for interference on the play.
Nurse did make contact with Seguin, but Seguin went down like he took a brutal uppercut to the face, holding his hands on his head in pain heading down to the ice. For such a light contact, Seguin put on an Oscar worthy performance to sell the call. Oilers fans took to social media to call Seguin out for the dive, which seems to be a real growing trend in hockey.
With penalties as soft as this called, it's absolutely unbelievable that the Oilers have only had one full powerplay opportunity through 7 periods of play in this series. After last night's game, Oilers Coach Knoblauch had to choose his words very carefully to try to criticize the officiating without taking a fine from the NHL.
The Oilers saw embellishment all over the ice in the series against Vancouver, and seeing it again is just infuriating. Still, the Oilers are pushing through, not diving themselves or allowing players to complain on the ice. At this point, the referees are another obstacle to be managed on the way to a Stanley Cup.
With embellishment becoming visually much more common, there may be changes coming around the NHL soon. Insider Elliotte Friedman has been calling for the NHL to adjust embellishment calls to be more proactive, and penalize players for faking penalties. When the referees are fooled, fans are fooled, and other players are fooled like this play by Tyler Seguin - it's just not a good look for the NHL anymore.
| POLL | ||
Do you think referees are being fooled too often by players embellishing penalties? | ||
| Yes, embellishment is a problem now | 246 | 92.1 % |
| No, nothing wrong with it | 13 | 4.9 % |
| See Results | 8 | 3 % |
| List of polls | ||
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