Here's a laugh from my rec game today. Scramble in front of our net and just as I get my stick on the puck major slash halfway up my stick breaking it. I'm pissed that I'm out a hundred bucks when I notice no penalty call. Now losing it I skate over to ref and say "how is that not a penalty" loudly. He says and I'm not joking "You want me to put your D partner in the box" I literally started laughing.
Ouch, that sucks. I won't lie, I often miss stuff in front of the net during scrambles because a lot of what I have to focus on if I'm on the goal line (and in the 2-official system since that's all they give to rec league) is whether the puck is loose or not. I'm sure I've missed dozens of calls because what I'm mainly looking for is whether the goalie has covered the puck or not. That said, if there are that many bodies in front of the net, I might see a stick whack and even some guy's stick break, but it might actually be hard to tell from my view who actually did it. If I don't know for sure who did it, I can't call anything.
On the other hand, if that's kind of my default response if players ask me why there's no call. Sometimes I did see what happened, and will relay why I didn't think it warranted a penalty (today someone called for a hooking penalty, I explained that I saw the heel of the stick blade contact the glove, but the blade was perpendicular to the ice and there wasn't enough of a "whacking" motion to warrant a slashing penalty either), but a lot of the time, I have to just say, hey, sorry, I didn't see it. I'll usually follow up with something like, "If it did happen, I apologize for missing it and I wish I could see everything, but I did not see that happen."
Semi off topic, you don't happen to play in Scottsdale D league do you? Because I did all 3 of their games today.