This is what gets me about the officiating debate here. The selective outrage. Sure what McNabb did was without cause and pretty stupid. Deserved a penalty too.Was it a butt end? Almost impossible to tell. The butt end of the stick certainly wasn't sticking out. He also had one hand on his stick... Looked more inadvertent than anything. Kopitar had just buried him with a few crosschecks and had his stick in the small of his back. He was trying to push him off to get up and caught him in the cheek.
Should Haula have chosen a buttend to retaliate against Kopitar? No. But a dirty player is someone who generally does shit like this without cause. Kopitar was crosschecking Haula and wouldn't let him get back up. It's not like we had an effect with no cause. Kopitar wouldn't get off Haula and Haula took a swing in frustration. Sure he shouldn't have used the butt end of his stick but this wasn't some malicious act.
Then people losing their minds that Marchessault "swung his stick at Doughty after Doughty shoved him" which isn't even what happened at all. Doughty punched Marchesseault it the back of the head and then tried to do it again but missed, Marchesseault used the miss to cross check him in the back. Yet all that ever got said in the GDT was how dirty Marchesseault is.
I really don't see how anyone with a straight face can say Doughty just gave Marchesseault a light shove there.
But regardless. There's no fix. There's no conspiracy. The refs have pocketed their whistles on both teams for the most part, all series long. And last night LA had more powerplays (though one was a technical call so it really comes out about even). And if the refs don't get a better handle on things cause "it's the playoffs", game 4 could get really ugly.