There are noticeable examples in all sports of refs swallowing their whistles late in games.

fixed!

I guess you’ve never seen a playoff game before. The refs “let them play”. Every single eliminated team in the history of the league can point to some play and say”man if they’d called that...”. If the Panthers could hold a lead they’d have won that series in 4 games. They have no-one to blame but themselves.

While I see both arguments, I lean more towards that put forward by Puck Daddy, a call is just not being made in that situation.