The NHL officials for tonight's Game 6 spells trouble for the Leafs

The NHL has scheduled a referee from Boston to officiate tonight's Game 6 between the Leafs and Bruins in Toronto. They're not even trying to hide their bias anymore. That's right - NHL referee Chris Rooney, one of the officials for tonight's game, is from Boston.

As we've seen time and time again in recent years, the officials have made some of the Leafs' attempts at extending or winning a series extremely difficult. There was the Justin Holl interference penalty in Game 7 in 2022 that negated John Tavares' tying goal.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7sa-Znq09Bg

There was also the Brad Marchand trip on Tyler Bertuzzi earlier in the series that went uncalled and led to the Bruins tying the game up, to name a couple.



Heading into a must-win game, the last thing the Leafs need, especially with losing 6 in a row on home ice, is the Bruins getting help from a hometown official.

Rooney will be joined by veteran Dan O'Rourke, who has a 74 percent home team winning percentage according to Scouting the Refs, as the NHL looks to even out the playing field a little bit. Rooney and O'Rourke will be joined on the lines by Ontario native Devin Berg and another Massachusetts native in Ryan Daisy. The decision to put a Boston native as an official in a series clinching game already has some Leaf fans expecting the worst.


With how the series has gone already though in terms of uncalled penalties on the Bruins, with one of them seemingly the root cause of Auston Matthews absence, the Leafs may have to beat the Bruins and the officials tonight to force a Game 7.