Did Craig Berube’s comments work?
The St. Louis Blues coach voiced displeasure with the officiating in wake of his team’s lopsided loss in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final. And if you ask Boston Bruins forward David Backes, there was a distinct difference in how Game 4 was officiated.
“(Berube made) a comment to the refs about them being this angelic team about not taking penalties all playoffs, and all of a sudden the whistles are put away,” Backes told reporters Monday night after the Blues defeated the Bruins 4-2 at Enterprise Center to pull even 2-2 in the best-of-seven series. “But that’s, you know what, we’ll keep playing through the stuff we have to. They’re doing it, and we have to find our goals however we need to find them.”
Neither team scored a power-play goal in Game 4, which saw the Blues and Bruins go 0-for-3 and 0-for-2, respectively, with the man advantage. This was a stark contrast from Game 3, when Boston went 4-for-4 on the power play en route to a 7-2 win and St. Louis finished 1-for-5. The Bruins received 10 power-play opportunities in the first two games, converting twice, while the Blues went scoreless in five power-play chances in Games 1 and 2.
“I felt like there was less called, no question. That’s what the statistics show, that there were less power plays on either side,” Backes said after Monday’s loss in St. Louis. “That’s kind of more what you’re expecting, maybe, coming into the finals, but that’s not the way the whole playoffs were for us, so I don’t know why that would change now. We’ll see. We just need to keep playing our game for 60 minutes and let the chips fall where they may.”
The series now shifts back to Boston for Game 5 on Thursday night. We’ll see if the gamesmanship from both sides continues in the meantime.
