Craig Berube had a bone to pick last week.
The bench boss of the St. Louis Blues had good reason to be irate, given the fact that his team was shellacked by a score of 7-2 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.
On a night in which 12 different Bruins skaters recorded a point, most of the damage inflicted by Boston still came by way of a potent power play that was cashing in on over a third of their attempts entering the contest. Of their four stints on the man advantage during Game 3, Boston lit the lamp on all four bids, needing just four shots to chase Jordan Binnington and hand St. Louis a lopsided loss in their first Cup Final game on home ice in 49 years.
There was plenty that Berube could have harped on in the immediate aftermath of such a brutal result: a call to arms for what was a leaky Blues penalty kill, an emphasis on throwing their weight around against a top-six unit for Boston that had still failed to break out during 5v5 play.
No, instead, he opted to point out the discrepancies in the number of calls levied against his club, when compared to the first three rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Averaging a little under three infractions per game going into their series with Boston, the Blues were called for 17 penalties during their first three outings against the B’s — exceeding their total from their six-game, first-round series against the Jets and matching their sum from a seven-game bout against the Stars.
In fact, the case could be made that the Blues should have been called for even more penalties during those three games, with Game 3 alone featuring a high hit from Sammy Blais on David Backes and a dangerous attempt by Brayden Schenn that David Pastrnak was able to evade.
Still, after seeing his club get eviscerated by Boston’s power play (six for 17 to open series), Berube believed that something else had to be afoot when it comes to calls on the ice.
“We’re the least penalized team in the league in the first three rounds and now all of the sudden, we’ve taken (17) penalties in one series, so I don’t know,” Berube said last Sunday. “I think that we can definitely be more composed after the whistles … but like I said, we’re the least penalized team in the league coming into this series, so I don’t agree with all the calls.”
Based on the way this series has evolved since then, it appears that the NHL has concurred with Berube’s sentiments. And now, it’s put the Bruins on the brink of a crushing postseason exit.
Perhaps you can say shame on the Bruins for being in this spot anyway, with Thursday’s 2-1 loss in Game 5 giving the Blues a 3-2 series edge off of two straight victories. Even with the spark generated by
Zdeno Chara
with a suspected broken jaw, Boston’s O-zone execution was once again sluggish, while the club’s power play has gone stagnant since Game 3 with an 0-for-5 showing.
No question, the Bruins didn’t do themselves any favors in terms of their current predicament. But the fact that only five power plays have been granted to Boston is a mystery that many in Boston’s locker room are still trying to solve.
“There’s penalties that you do need to call,”
Brandon Carlo
remarked.
On a high hit from
Ivan Barbashev
in the opening minutes of Game 5? Nope.
On another high strike from
Zach Sanford
on
Torey Krug?
Nada.
How about when
Oskar Sundqvist
pinned down Krug for four seconds, generating a scoring chance for St. Louis that was only negated by a clutch stop by
David Krejci
as the last line of defense? Nyet.
And, of course, the non-call that led to a barrage of debris onto the TD Garden ice, and prompted
Cam Neely
It was a brutal look for the NHL, with
David Perron
’s eventual game-winner at 10:36 in the third period tallied during a sequence in which
Noel Acciari
was tripped up by
Tyler Bozak
and dropped to the ice, with a spotter forcing the Bruins winger to exit the game to assess for a possible concussion. When Bozak turned back to the official behind him to protest an expected call with the usual spiel, there was no call to be found. Seconds later, and with Acciari still on the sheet, Perron lit the lamp, putting the Blues just one win away from their first Cup title.
“It’s a missed call,” Acciari said. “It’s the biggest stage of hockey right now. I don’t know what else I can say about it.”
"That’s a penalty every time,” Krug added. “There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I’m all for letting us play, but when it leads to scoring chances and the opposing team ends up with the puck, it should be going our way. It should be a penalty."
Sure, sure. We can harp all day on how fruitless it can be to play the “what if” game when it comes to the Russian Roulette operation that is NHL officiating. After all,
it’s just playoff hockey, right?
But given the Bruins’ comments in the minutes following the loss, it’s hard to simply tune out a result like this as just another example of
letting the boys play
.
For many in Boston’s room, there seems to be a pretty tangible correlation between a certain line of comments last week and a shift in way calls have been made this series. Or rather, a lack thereof.
“Yes,” was Krug’s retort, when asked if the way the series has been called has changed since Berube’s comments on Sunday.
"I hope not,” Patrice Bergeron said when asked the same question. “I hope not, because that shouldn’t change anything.”
In the heat of the moment, it’s human nature for players to be rather “crispy” about a game that they felt has been unfairly altered by outside forces. But Boston’s bench boss did not hold back either – identifying the same culprit responsible for the lack of whistles over the last two games.
“I sat here two days ago or whatever it was and said I believe these officials are at this level because they earned the right to be here and you should be getting the best,” a frustrated Bruce Cassidy said postgame. “The narrative changed after Game 3, there was a complaint or whatever put forth by the opposition and it just seemed to change everything.”
As expected, Berube washed his hands when it came to acknowledging how many fingerprints he’s left on this series.
“I don’t agree with it, but that doesn’t matter,” Berube said of Cassidy’s comments. “I’m not here to judge the officials and calls that could have been or couldn’t have been. They go both ways. I mean, there’s calls the other way that could have been called and they weren’t, so I don’t know what to say about that.”
What else would he say on the matter? The deed has already been done.
The hits have been delivered.
The whistles have been muted.
And the Blues need just one more win to send a battered and bruised Bruins team home without a Cup.
