Montreal Canadiens head coach Claude Julien had some glowing things to say about the Boston Bruins before Saturday night’s game at TD Garden.
But man, did he change his tune after watching his current team fall to his former club 2-1 in overtime.
After the game, a heated Julien sounded off on the officiating as well as what he perceived to be some embellishment on the part of the Bruins. Here’s what Julien had to say, per NBC Sports Boston’s Joe Haggerty:
“I think it’s pretty obvious. When your best shooter is on a breakaway and doesn’t get a shot away, I think everybody agrees that it should have been a penalty shot,” Julian said while referencing Sean Kuraly’s first-period slashing minor that broke up a breakaway chance for the Canadiens. “What’s embarrassing is (Rick) Nash embellishing (a high-sticking call). The stick hits his shoulder, it doesn’t even hit his face and he embellishes and looks at the referee.
“Those are embarrassing things in the game of hockey. We’re a tired team and we have to kill penalties, and it eventually caught up to us. That’s disappointing that when we had some of those things happen, or another (Byron Froese) penalty that’s called five seconds later because we end up on a two-on-one. As I said, we evaluate ourselves and we expect others to evaluate themselves as well.”
Make of those comments what you will.
Julien is notoriously anti-embellishment (who isn’t?), so it’s not surprising to see him upset, regardless of whether his accusations are valid. Still, after watching his club get swept in all four games against the Bruins this season, perhaps Julien must realize he simply is losing to the better team.
