Trevor Zegras tries to sell a penalty and referees take rare action

During today's Oilers game, Ducks star forward Trevor Zegras appeared to really to sell try to sell a high sticking penalty, and the referees took an extremely rare action afterwards.

Near the end of the second period, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was called for a high stick on a play where his stick never went anywhere near his face. Still, Zegras looked like he cried out in pain while grabbing his mouth in front of the referee, shamelessly trying to make up a penalty.


Right after this play happened to be a TV timeout, in which the referees took a moment to discuss the penalty call against Nugent-Hopkins. One of the officials must have seen that Nuge's stick clearly went around Zegras, because the referees made the extremely rare decision to rescind the penalty entirely.



Upon further replays, fans have noticed that it was actually Darnell Nurse who did clip Zegras with a high stick. This then makes the decision to rescind the penalty even more confusing. The ability to even take back penalties nearly never happens, and it's truly bizarre what happened here.

It's an extremely embarrassing play from the referees, who now really seems to be struggling to keep up as an actual NHL professionals. The NHL is implementing a rule next season for the first time that will allow coaches to initiate video reviews for high-sticking penalties in a better effort to make more accurate calls. It seems like here the referees tried to get a jump start on reviewing the call, but they still got the penalty wrong.