Whistles go to waste
Officials far behind quality of both teams
Before we start, let’s get this one thing out of the way. The Tampa Bay Lightning look like a better team than the Bruins. They have been so for most of the four games of this best-of-seven series, which now stands 3-1 in the Lightning favor.
BRUINS BEAT Steve Conroy
But did they really need another team to help them with their cause?
That other team is, of course, the referees in this series. They have a hard job. The game moves at an incredible pace and it can be as dangerous for them as it is for the players. Referee Francois St.Laurent, in fact, couldn’t finish last night’s game because of an injury sustained in the third, giving way to stand-in Brad Watson in overtime.
But they have to do a better job than they have done in this series.
Last night was the latest example of them swallowing their whistles in a key moment of the game. The Bruins, after an inspired comeback after going down 2-0 yet again, were protecting a 3-2 lead when Charlie McAvoy was wheeling with the puck behind Tuukka Rask. Nikita Kucherov grabbed him from behind, hauled him down and the puck squirted to J.T. Miller who set up Steven Stamkos for a one-timer and the tying goal with 7:04 left in the third period. Kucherov didn’t even get an assist on the play, meaning he didn’t touch the puck.
Free arm, grab from behind. It is a near automatic call, but it was let go. Dan Girardi won it for the Bolts in overtime. What could be a fantastic 2-2 series is going back to Tampa with the B’s on fumes.
In the B’s dressing room after the game, the responses were muted from the players, who were most likely advised not to let their real feelings be known for fear their frustration becomes too big of a crutch. But coach Bruce Cassidy, while not ranting and raving, was clearly not thrilled.
“We seem to be going down this road a lot with the non-calls,” said Cassidy when asked about the pivotal moment. “It looked like he reached around him, pulled him down. Charlie’s a strong guy. But it wasn’t called, and it’s in our net. That’s that. There’s nothing you can do about it after that. You have to keep playing, and we did, but they made the first play in overtime.”
The non-call might have been easier to swallow if not for what transpired before that. The score was tied 2-2 when Noel Acciari was called for hooking at 5:34. The B’s fought through that questionable penalty and actually got the go-ahead goal when Brad Marchand fed Patrice Bergeron for a shorthanded goal that ignited the Garden.
It’s the officiating inconsistencies that had Cassidy seemingly at wit’s end.
“I would tell the players not to (get frustrated), but we’re human beings. It’s game after game after game,” said Cassidy. “To me, you look at the Acciari penalty. It’s unbelievable that the league gives you a directive at the start of the year that you have to go under the stick and not on the hands. He goes under the stick a foot from his hands and you’ve got a 6-foot-5 guy who I think really sold it. And I think the officials have to really be on top of that. They’ve got to be on top of that call because it’s not an infraction as he’s being directed to but it didn’t go our way.
“Now, we score a shorty and you almost think there’s a bit of karma involved. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to find a way to play through it. We’ve got to find a way to start better. We’re continually killing the first penalty in every game and giving up the first goal on the first scoring chance. We just need to be better out of the gate in all these areas, so that we’re not in a hole.
“As for the calls,” he continue, “we’re all kind of tired talking about it. I heard someone say, ‘Suck it up and play.’ And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to suck it up and play. And I thought we did a good job of it.”
The Bruins are tired of talking about it because the officiating has been a topic since Game 1. In that one, the B’s fought through a few things to get their only win of the series. They had a goal taken off the board when David Pastrnak was called for cross-checking while Girardi’s almost simultaneous cross-check of Bergeron went uncalled. Then Rask was allowed to flop around helplessly with a skate blade while the Bolts scored a goal. Yes, there is a rule that states the refs can’t blow the play dead unless the mask comes off, but common sense says the whistle should be blown. It’s been done before. Just YouTube it.
And then in Game 2, Marchand had a breakaway late in the third period with the B’s trailing 3-2 when he was clearly slashed on the hands from behind by Anton Stralman. Again, there’s no call on the play and it is usually an automatic penalty.
Last night, captain Zdeno Chara did not make a judgment on the refs.
“That’s somebody else’s job. I know they have supervisors watching games and they have to see those replays,” said Chara, who himself helped along a slashing penalty on Tyler Johnson, “So it’s up to other people to make those calls.”
One would suspect that the officiating in this series will not hold up well under review.