Have you ever wondered why NHL referees even bother to step onto the ice in overtime of a playoff game?

No reason. Waste of time.

Just send the linesmen out there so they can call the offsides, icings and too many men on the ice penalties.

Referees leave their whistles in the locker room.

It even goes beyond the moniker given to New York City playground basketball: no blood, no foul.

In the NHL, it’s no foul. Period.

Two Toronto Maple Leafs were bloodied by errant Philadelphia Flyer sticks in the overtime sessions on Monday night.

If the first one had occurred during a regular season game, the Flyer would have been assessed a double minor.

The second one would have been just a minor because it was a matter of Jeremy Roenick and Alexander Mogilny tripping over each other and Roenick’s stick clipping Mogilny’s face and forcing him to leave the game.

The “rule” is every player is responsible for his stick and even if it accidentally clips an opponent, it’s a penalty.

Neither infraction was called. A hit from behind by Toronto’s Gary Roberts was also ignored.

The mindset is that the referees want the players to decide the game. They don’t want to be the ones to decide it by calling a penalty.

Players know that and take liberties. They know they can bear hug an opposing player in the corner, run them from behind or trip them and get away with it.

Unfortunately, it’s going to take a serious injury and a subsequent no-call for the NHL to step in and tell the referees to start calling penalties in playoff overtimes.

Hopefully, it won’t come to that.

A penalty is a penalty whether it occurs in regulation of a regular season game or overtime of a playoff game.

I understand the rationale for letting a little more go in playoff overtimes but it has gotten way out of hand.

Gophers deserved NCAA title

How noteworthy was the University of Minnesota’s back-to-back NCAA hockey championships?

In addition to becoming the first back-to-back champions since the 1971 and ’72 Boston University teams, Minnesota also snapped a five-year stretch in which five different schools had won national titles.

Fourteen schools have won NCAA hockey championships in the 55-year history.

The Gophers were clearly the faster and better team in their 5-1 win over New Hampshire, outshooting the Wildcats 45-27.

UNH senior center Lanny Gare’s separated shoulder proved costly.

You can’t lose your leading scorer and, arguably, your best player and beat a team as good as Minnesota.

This isn’t to say UNH would have won with him. But I’m sure Minnesota wouldn’t have had as much of an edge in territorial play.

The Maine Black Bears suffered the same fate in 2000. They had a legitimate chance to repeat but when leading scorer Cory Larose was assessed the five-minute major and game disqualification for butt-ending in the 5-2 quarterfinal win over Michigan, it definitely hurt them in their 2-0 semifinal loss to North Dakota.

Lineup stability is crucial in post-season play especially when the missing players are your leading scorers and important components on the special teams.

Larry Mahoney can be reached at 990-8231, 1-800-310-8600 or by email at lmahoney@bangordailynews.net.