By Eric Berry
The term mutually exclusive is a statistical term describing two or more events that cannot coincide. It is commonly used to describe a situation where the occurrence of one outcome supersedes the other. I’m going to use this point, and several others, to eliminate all of this BS consolation talk about how the officials didn’t cost the Boston Bruins last night’s Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Here’s a simple FACT for you to read before you go any further. Last night’s non-call of the blatant trip of Noel Acciari by Tyler Bozak cost the Bruins the game. FACT. Final score St. Louis 2 Boston 1. Goal number 2 came directly after the official, Kelly Sutherland(who will not ever be forgiven by Bruins fans even if they rally and win the Cup), failed to make what would be an obvious call for an NBA official. It’s like Draymond Green clothes lining Lebron James and the official looking the other way. Would that happen? No.
I have heard people say the Bruins were outplayed. Excuse me? The only area in which the B’s were outplayed was on faceoffs in which they lost 38 to 26. Most of those faceoffs didn’t play a role in the outcome of the game, or at least anywhere near what the slew foot provided by Bozak accomplished. Bozak knew he screwed up. Watch the video. He was all but heading to the penalty box. He sheepishly got back into the play. About the only thing the NHL Gods did right was not allow him to sweep in a backside goal on the play(he was standing there as the puck deflected off of Rask’s pad and into the goal. Imagine if he would have been the one who scored. Guess it doesn’t matter. The B’s out shot the Blues 39 to 21, they outhit them 43 to 34. Blocked shots were tied at 15 each. Final score 2 to 1. “Egregious calls”, to quote Coach Bruce Cassidy, well they went 1 to nothing in favor of the St. Louis Blues. That call resulted in a goal directly as a result of a blatant disregard for the rules by a rule keeper. There’s no excusing that.
Why is it that people are so quick to deflect blame off of a professional official? The NHL issued a ridiculous statement about how “there are 1000’s of judgement calls in every game”, blah blah blah. The NHL Network announcers got on their pulpit and said that Bruce Cassidy should have handled it with more class in the post game presser. Are you kidding me? Post game presser’s are to review what happened, in you guessed it, the game! What happened in the game that might have been relevant? Cue, Jeopardy! music………………..oh that’s right THE BLATANT NON CALL! All these guys on the air saying how they would have handled it? Oh yeah? You have a whole season long invested into one team like Cassidy does? You can’t even begin to feel how sick he must feel for his team, and himself. Careers could have been forever altered by that non call. Get off your high horse.
A friend of mine just said to me on Facebook “if it wasn’t for the refs the B’s would have won the game 1-1”. Not my point. You can’t lose a game 1-1 in the playoffs(or regular season). Further, I’m just thinking this one out here, that had the B’s gotten the power play as they should have, they might have ended up 1 for 4 on the PP and not 0 for 3. Then maybe they win 2 to 1. Rumor has it they have a pretty good power play-though last night’s efforts on said power play was way off.
The game is over and the Bruins will be forced to win 2 games in a row. Maybe David Pastrnak or Brad Marchand will go on to score a Game 7 goal similar to that of the great Bobby Orr’s back in the 1970 Final. No matter what happens, there is no way that anyone can dispute the fact that Kelly Sutherland, blew a call that cost the Bruins, and any real NHL fan of integrity, a right to a legitimate ending. These are the FACTS and they cannot be disputed!