Ref leaves mic on, reveals he has no idea who he called a penalty on

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen several hilarious referee moments in the National Hockey League, but most of them seem intentional.

In the preseason, we saw Reid Anderson yell at Nathan MacKinnon, telling him to “Get in there!” when the Avs’ forward was jawing back at him. Of course, the most famous referee for these moves has been Wes McCauley, who had the “5 minutes for FIGHTING” line and several others.

The latest in this series of hilarious moments comes from referee Brad Watson who was officiating the Capitals-Canadiens game in Washington on Saturday.

In the second period of the game, Alexander Ovechkin was tripped in the Capitals’ offensive zone and the referee saw it all happen. The only problem was, he saw the trip and nothing else. He wasn’t sure who actually committed the infraction, so when he got to the penalty box to announce the penalty, all he could say was “Whoever tripped Ovechkin”.

Now, we’re not referees, but we’re pretty sure there are some issues with this. The player ends up being number 25, Jacob De La Rose, but way be a bigger issue for Habs fans is that if you don’t know who committed the infraction, how can you be sure it was one of the Habs’ players that tripped him in the first place.

The call ended up being the right one in the end, but still, we’re pretty sure…