Bruins Miffed After Getting Burned By Bad Penalty Call In Game 3 Loss To Leafs
BOSTON (CBS) -- A bad penalty call cost the Bruins a goal in their Game 3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday night, and though they're pretty ticked off about it, they're not going to let those feelings linger into Game 4.
The call came in the first period as Riley Nash, in his first game back after taking a Torey Krug slapper off his ear nearly three weeks ago, tried to clear the puck out of the defensive zone. Nash's attempt hit the glass and went into the stands, but none of the on-ice officials saw the puck hit the glass. They got together to discuss the play, and then incorrectly ruled that the puck went straight into the stands. They hit Nash and the Bruins with a delay-of-game penalty, despite Nash's pleas for them to reconsider on his way to the box.
The play is not reviewable, and it ended up costing Boston just seven seconds later when James van Riemsdyk won the battle for a rebound in front of Tuukka Rask and put home the game's first goal. It was Toronto's first lead of the series.
Nash was not very pleased with the call after Boston's 4-2 loss.
"I don't know what I'm allowed to comment on. I know it was the wrong call -- I saw it go off the glass," he told reporters in Toronto. "It's hard because you want to change their minds sometimes. But that might be one where they should implement the challenge and allow that. It seems like there are a lot of close plays like that and refs have a really hard job. It's a bang-bang play and some guys have better angles or don't see it, so they have to make a call.
"At the end of the day I knew what happened, so it was frustrating," he said. "But you have to put it behind you and move on. I thought we did that after they scored and capitalized on it."
Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy also let his frustration show after the loss.
"My question was 'Who made the call?'" questioned Cassidy. "They come together. There was no immediate calls. As a coach, if the ref makes a call, you kind of live with it because it's decisive.
"Now they get together, and I assume they want to make the right call," Cassidy continued. "That's the idea, we understand that. But they all got together and clearly they guessed, because it hit the glass — we saw that. ... Clearly they guessed, because it did hit the glass. So they guessed and I don't think you can guess and give somebody a power play."
The Bruins were able to fight off their frustration and net the equalizer early in the second period on Adam McQuaid's first goal of the postseason. Patrick Marleau put the Leafs back up 2-1 just 43 seconds later, but Zdeno Chara answered with a fancy top-shelf wrister just 2:30 later. They showed the resiliency to battle back and not let that call snowball into anything worse.
While they vented their frustrations after the game, expect the Bruins to be over the blown call as soon as the puck drops in Game 4 on Thursday night.
