Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said after Thursday’s Game 5 loss to St. Louis that the officiating throughout the playoff has been a
BOSTON — Bruins president Cam Neely hurled a water bottle against a wall. Boston fans littered the ice with garbage. Coach Bruce Cassidy called it “egregious,” in an intense rant about how the quality of playoff officiating has been a “black eye” for the NHL.
The St. Louis Blues won Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final 2-1 to take a 3-2 series lead Thursday night, but it was how they scored their second goal that had the Bruins’ faithful irate. Moments before David Perron snuck a puck past Tuukka Rask, the officials opted not to call what appeared to be a blatant trip on Bruins forward Noel Acciari by Blues center Tyler Bozak. Acciari hit his head on the ice, taking him out of the play, and eventually put him into the NHL’s concussion protocol.
“The reaction was ‘You missed an F’ing call,’ that was what was being said on the bench, for obvious reasons,” Cassidy said. “The no-call on Acciari… their player is on his way to the box. It’s right in front of the official. It’s a slew foot. Our guy’s gone. The spotter took him out of the game for a possible concussion. I mean, it’s blatant. It had a big effect on the game.”
Bozak said the play was “just a puck battle,” and wasn’t sure what had happened. “I honestly don’t know. It’s a fast game out there. I couldn’t tell,” Bozak said. “I was just battling for the puck. Luckily we ended up with it and it ended up in the back of the net, so we’ll take it.”
NHL senior vice president and director of officiating Stephen Walkom was asked by a pool reporter to respond to the non-call. “We don’t make comments on judgment calls within games. There are hundreds of judgment calls in every game. The official on the play, he viewed it and he didn’t view it as a penalty at the time,” Walkom said.
But the officiating, and the change in its focus, has become a dominant story as the series has continued.
