The referees for tonight’s Western Conference semifinal Game 7 between the Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks will be Wes McCauley (#4) and Brad Watson (#23).
Working the lines will be Jay “Hova” Sharrers (#57) and Pierre “you call me red light every time, come up with something new” Racicot (#65).
McCauley is an interesting assignment. He worked the controversial Game 3 of this series -- a 2-1 Sharks win in OT -- which was marked by a rare overtime 5-on-3 after penalties were called on Kings defenseman Robyn Regehr and forward Trevor Lewis late in regulation.
Logan Couture scored the game-winner in OT, and Kings goalie Jonathan Quick proceeded to berate referees McCauley and Mark Joanette, earning himself a game misconduct for abuse of officials.
“‘I’m disappointed that the refs had enough confidence to make a gutsy call like that in the last 30 seconds of the period,” Dustin Penner said afterward.
“It’s pretty impressive when you have enough gall to guess because I’m going to look at the tape and I’m going to see if he got pushed because I know what it’s like to drive the net.”
As for Watson, this’ll be his second Game 7 of this postseason.
He worked the crazy Boston-Toronto finale, which featured a fairly high number of penalties for a series-decider (18 PIM all told; three power play opportunities for Toronto, two for Boston).
Watson does have experience calling the Kings in high-stakes games, as he was one of the four referees selected to work the 2012 Stanley Cup finals.
Update: Should’ve mentioned that Watson worked Game 2 of this series, a game that featured Marc-Edouard Vlasic’s questionable delay of game penalty and LA’s furious comeback in the late stages of the third period.