Blues beat the Bruins at Bad Call, Bruce Cassidy denounces "Black Eye" for NHL officials

I am tired. Officials who make big, big calls in the series, mainly, but also who have to write blogs about them that are trying to say something smarter than Well, it's wrong to make a mistake when phoning in such moments, but being an NHL official is hard work and even the best are going to go wrong from time to time. Perhaps we should add another official, perhaps hanging over the ice in a harness and tossing like a sky camera? So maybe for this one, I will take you "into the game" and explain the formula with which these blogs can now be written almost reflexively.

As is the case here, I recount the previous negative rounds in the playoffs to illustrate how much there was and how crucial they were, but I also assume that most readers remember it. , so I'm just going to create a link. for them rather than describing them, and also the internal link is good for the traffic. The major ghost of Cody Eakin who organized a wild return of sharks in the first round; the offside on Gabriel Landeskog in round 2 was rather a failure of the rules book and the protest system; The passport of Timo Meier.

Let's be a little presage of Thursday's fifth game by reminding how, after the third game, St. Louis coach Craig Berube used his press conference to get the referees working, complaining about the number of calls he made. they had gone on his team. It was not that one of the individual calls was bad or unfair, which Bérubé knew very well. The Blues are by far the most physical team in the series. They play "heavy hockey", which is based on a failure before strong and makes life miserable for skaters in Boston. It was simply a matter of playing with the intent of getting the public servants to think a little bit further to get their whistles. At Bérubé's comments, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy revealed what he thought was a joke:

"We are ready for a physical game and we will not be interested in officials. Until they stink and they oppose us, is not it? "Joked Cassidy after the morning session.

Which brings us to (after a lot of noodles around; maybe as well a lot for the readers who just want to know who won this damn hockey game and have already clicked) the fifth game, which, as you guessed (because of all the background and foreshadowing I've provided Over the third period, with the Blues retaining a 1-0 lead, Tyler Bozak put Noel Acciari at the bottom of the table. Just ball ahead of two officials.No call and a few seconds later, David Perron scored.Lord St. Louis hangs to win 2-1 and take the lead 3-2 of the series.

Do I have a screengrab of the NBC show that shows how much this one has been missed? You better believe it. The referee is on the spot, and even more striking, you can see Bozak raise his arm to protest … something. He surely looks like a guilty man, complaining to the referee of a penalty he was expecting to receive but who has never been. Even the most charitable interpretation, that he was ready to complain about an Acciari dive, does not make him too much of a favor once you learn that Acciari's & # 39; Was banged his head against the ice and was removed from the game to pass the concussion protocol. , usually not the results of a dive.

Now here is the point on a bad officials blog where I forward the ineffective non-declaration of the league or, in this case, its director of officials. "We do not comment on judgments in the games," said Stephen Walkom. "There are hundreds of judgments in every game. The official on the game, he saw it and he did not consider it a penalty at the time. "

I could also consider relaying a quote from the offending player in which he says something like: I'm not sure what happened there but certainly do not admit to having committed an offense, but I will not do it because you already knew in your heart that Bozak had said exactly that.

Now (well, and with great disrespect for the inverted pyramid), this is the part of the blog where I blocked Cassidy's fiery reaction to the play and the official in general.

"The National Hockey League has a black eye with its officials in these playoffs, and there will be another one we're going to talk about," Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said.

"It's right in front of the official. It's a crowbar. Our guy is gone. The watchman pulled out of the game for a concussion. I mean, it's blatant. This had a big effect on the game. "

(Here's the point where I point out in brackets the following evidence: even though it had a significant impact on the game, the Bruins would probably have deserved to lose anyway.) Jordan Binnington was a beast when he was tested, and St. Louis is working some kind of dark magic to completely close Boston's "perfection line", and non-calls do not score goals for your opponent, and a goal for you, 60 minutes will not be enough, no matter the number of appeals against you .. recognize all this because it's true, but mostly because it will solve the complaints of Blues fans who like to hear about it.)

To add a little more context to Cassidy's comments, a context that might have disrupted the flow of this blog if I had given it before the quote, the Bruins think that Bérubé's work on referees before Match 4 had a real effect. "He made a comment to the referees on the fact that they were this angelic team on not taking any penalties all rounds," said David Backes, "and suddenly the whistles are put out. side." Judge by the number of calls, but note with concern that the Bruins have averaged 4.7 power games per game in the first three games of this series and only 2.5 per game in the last two games.

It can be difficult to end these blogs because it's hard to say anything concrete beyond that should not happen as much and the NHL knows it should not be too much. They will probably discuss it in the offseason, but what can they really do?, but I'll try to end on a pseudo-deep note by observing that, at one level, the real problem of the NHL is not the injustice inflicted on the teams by the bad calls in the big moments, but rather the makes everyone talk about arbitration. at all, instead of great hockey. I will also expand the fact that I help to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy by writing about the officials rather than the hockey. But that's how these blogs go.