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I have seen many players over the years who fit this description, even at the NHL level: Tremendous tools, good size, excellent skater, naturally athletic, skilled with the puck but, sadly, limited hockey sense. Their feet go a mile a minute but they skate much faster than they think and process the game.

I have seen the same thing with officials, too, again including some who have made it the NHL level. It's not enough just to be a gifted athlete and a fluid skater. It's not even enough to combine that with the ability to pass a Rule Book test. Hockey sense matters, too; being able to read what's going on, skate to the right place, and make a split-second decision.

It's my opinion that, while replay has its place in our game in order to maximize the chance of correcting major errors and getting the calls right, we've come to a place where replay has started to become over-emphasized; a crutch that instills a false sense of security that "we'll just fix it in replay" if the initial call is wrong. Its overuse runs counter to accountability for honing one's hockey sense.

If there is one legacy that I hope I've passed along from what was given to be my own mentors -- my dad Bill Stewart Jr., John McCauley, John Ashley, Frank Udvari, Bruce Hood, Dave Newell and more -- its one of dedication to making the art of officiating better.

I say "art" because officiating, much like the coveted concept of hockey sense really is as much about art as science. It's situational. It's psychological. It's emotional. There's only so much than be legislated and written into the Rule Book, which tends to get convoluted, counter-intuitive and self-contradictory in places.

I have said this many times before, and have also retold the following story many times: The best advice I ever got about officiating methodology and striking the balance between a player's mentality and a referee's mentality was given to me by the late Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Frank Udvari, who passed away several years ago.

Frank pulled me aside one night and told me, "Don't just read the rule book and then referee by the book. Put your skates on and referee by the feel. If a player did it to you and you'd be angry, that's a penalty. If he did it to your teammate and you want to go fight the guy, that's a penalty. If you were sitting on the bench and your teammate was doing it to an opponent and you would ask yourself, 'What the hell was that?', then that's a penalty."

For the rest of my career, I focused on refereeing by feel and by taking the temperature of the game. Hockey sense became an area where I felt my playing background, which included time in the NHL and WHA, gave me an advantage over some other guys.

Young players and coaches would benefit themselves by doing some officiating themselves. They would learn to think the game differently and it would boost their knowledge base. At the same time, I think the ranks of officials would benefit from having more people who played the game.

The truth of the matter is that we have a hard time recruiting people to become officials and then to get enough of those who do try it to stick with it. Apart from the technical aspects, skating ability, physical fitness, strong positioning and Rule Book knowledge, this job demands a combination of athleticism, psychology, courage and mental toughness that few people possess.

That is the right stuff. The more we strive to identify and cultivate it, the better the art of officiating will be along with the technical side of the profession.

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A 2018 inductee into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.

Visit Paul's official websites, YaWannaGo.com and Officiating by Stewart.