BOSTON — The Bruins’ season ended in disappointing fashion in more ways than one. Not only did the B’s bow out in the second playoff round after losing to the Montreal Canadiens, but their reputation seemed to take a little bit of a hit.
The latter development was a result of criticism stemming from some of the antics Boston displayed during an emotionally charged series. Milan Lucic’s stick work and handshake line behavior are on that list, as was Shawn Thornton squirting water at Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban during Game 5.
Much of that probably was overblown, and the Bruins’ brass doesn’t sound too concerned about how the team handled itself. Bruins president Cam Neely questioned some of the decision-making, but he was quick to point out Tuesday that these types of things aren’t entirely uncommon.
“Well, you don’t like to see that happen,” Neely admitted at a postseason news conference at TD Garden. “The stick work is something that, you know, nowadays you just can’t get away with. There’s two referees, there’s all kinds of cameras, there’s reporters that tweet information out as soon as it happens. You can’t get away with certain things like you used to be able to do.
“The water bottle incident is something that as an organization you don’t like to see happen, to be quite honest with you. Stick work happens, it’s not just our team that does it, it does happen. I can tell you this: In handshake lines, there’s probably worse things that have been said that just don’t get public. In the history of handshake lines, I can almost guarantee that.”
Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs believes the team’s actions were a result of emotions running a little high.
“It’s the silliness that goes on,” he said. “It is a physical sport, there’s a lot of contact and there’s a lot of emotion. We can’t take that away from them, but how they display it or how it comes back. But it is fun to report it.”
