It wouldn't be the Stanley Cup Playoffs without coaches complaining about calls, and it only took one game for the Bruins' first-round series against the Hurricanes to feature a controversial call and subsequent ripping of said call.
The ruling in question came on Charlie Coyle's goal 4:38 into the second period that gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead. There were a couple questionable elements on the play. The first is that Nick Ritchie tried to knock down the puck after it had popped into the air and may have knocked it towards goal with a hand-pass. The second is that Carolina goalie Petr Mrazek then tried to cover the puck with his glove, only to have Anders Bjork knock it loose and slide it over to the goal-scorer Coyle.
The subsequent venting came from Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour, who called for a review of the goal but lost the challenge, giving the Bruins a power play on top of having the goal stand.
Brind'Amour was clearly upset both after the initial call and then even moreso after the review. Surprisingly, he wasn't asked about it on his Zoom call with the media after the game, only briefly alluding to it by saying, "I still can't figure it out."
He clearly wanted to get something off his chest, though, because afterwards he talked to a couple local Hurricanes writers, including Sara Civian of The Athletic and Luke DeCock of The News & Observer (Raleigh), and he did not hold back.
"This is why the league's a joke, in my opinion, on these things," Brind'Amour told The News & Observer. "That one is a crime scene."
"It's horse(expletive)," he told The Athletic. "This is where the league is a joke."
Brind'Amour's main point of contention is that the refs forced him to pick one of two things to challenge: either the potential hand pass by Ritchie or the potential cover by Mrazek, but not both.
Brind'Amour: "The guy comes to me and says it's either goalie interference because he has it and the guy knocked it out of his hand or it's a glove hand pass, you gotta pick one. Either way it's a no goal. What? YOU have to tell me what the call is. He's telling me to pick one"
— Sara Civ (@SaraCivian) August 12, 2020Brind'Amour: If you're saying he didn't have it? You're not telling me what call you're making and I have to pick one? Then they go upstairs and say "Oh, he had possession"? It's horseshit. This is where the league is a joke."
— Sara Civ (@SaraCivian) August 12, 2020"They came to me, and I said, 'If he has possession of it then it's goalie interference. If he doesn't have possession then it's a hand pass. It's one of the two. I don't know what you're calling on the ice,'" Brind'Amour told The News & Observer. "All he has to do is tell me. 'We're calling it nonpossession (by Mrazek),' then we're challenging a glove-hand pass. If it's possession, then goaltender interference. I said, 'Tell me the call on the ice.' They wouldn't do it when I say, 'What is the call?' So I had to flip a coin. ...
"I said, 'What was the call on the ice?' and he said, 'You've got to call one or the other.' It should be so easy. If they said the goalie had it, then it's an easy call. They wouldn't tell you. It makes no sense. I know we weren't the better team, but if that goal doesn't go in, do we win that game? I don't know."
The NHL apparently didn't appreciate those comments. A short time later, they announced they were fining Brind'Amour $25,000.
While there is certainly a debate to be had about whether you should be able to challenge the whole play rather than just one part of it, Brind'Amour's complaint about the refs not telling him the call on the ice doesn't hold up. The call on the ice was a goal, meaning the refs had obviously ruled that there was neither a hand pass nor a cover by Mrazek. Even if Ritchie did knock the puck down with his glove, Mrazek playing it before it got over to Coyle would have negated it.
It's also funny to see him reference the possibility of winning the game if the goal hadn't counted, because the penalty for losing the challenge actually wound up with the Hurricanes scoring a shorthanded goal to tie the game just 21 seconds later. So everything canceled out in the end.
Maybe we're just biased, but it seems to us that allowing the goal to stand was the right call. Ritchie may have played it with his glove, but not directly to a teammate. Mrazek played the puck, which negated the hand pass, but didn't manage to cover it, so there shouldn't have been a whistle.
Or maybe it's horse(explitive). Watch and judge for yourself:
Count it.@CharlieCoyle_3 | #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/tPCye9Izs0
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) August 12, 2020Presented by:
