Stanley Cup Final Game 5 Referee Assignments Just Might Benefit Bruins

Boston Bruins’ fans may not be complaining about the referees assigned to Game 5 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final against the St. Louis Blues.

Steve Kozari and Kelly Sutherland will be the referees at TD Garden on Thursday night, and it seems like they’ve given the Bruins a slight edge in earlier games this series.

Kozari and Sutherland were the referees for Games 1 and 3 of this year’s Cup Final between the Bruins and Blues, with Boston winning both games. In Game 1 of the series, Boston went 1-for-5 on the power play en route to a 4-2 victory over the Blues. St. Louis had 10 penalty minutes in Game 1, something that only got worse in Game 3. In the Bruins’ 7-2 Game 3 stomping of the Blues, they went 4-for-4 on the power play while the Blues went 1-for-5. St. Louis had 14 penalty minutes in Game 3, something Blues head coach Craig Berube was irate about.

“First of all, we were the least penalized team in the league in the first three rounds, now all of a sudden we’ve taken (17) penalties in one series. So I don’t know. I don’t buy into all of that, to be honest with you,” Berube said at the time.

Game 4 saw a tapering off of penalties on both sides of the ice, and the Blues only were called for three penalties in a 4-2 win over Boston.

It will be interesting to see just how many penalties are called by Kozari and Sutherland during Thursday night’s Game 5. As ScoutingTheRefs.com points out, the Bruins are 4-1 with Kozari on the ice and a perfect 5-0 with Sutherland making the calls. St. Louis, on the other hand, is 3-3 under both referees throughout the playoffs. Both officials relatively were home team-friendly, too, this season. Sutherland and Kozari both called 53 percent of their penalties on the road team this season, with only one referee who worked at least 50 games calling a higher percentage of infractions on the visitor.

Pierre Racicot and Greg Devorski will be the linesmen alongside Kozari and Sutherland.