Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour was still in disbelief about Boston Bruins forward Jake DeBrusk’s second-period goal in Game 4 on Sunday when he took the podium for his postgame press conference.
Brind’Amour was so perplexed because he thought DeBrusk’s tap-in goal in a scrum in front of the net, which started a string of four unanswered tallies by the Bruins in their 5-2 victory, should never have counted.
Brind’Amour was so confident that DeBrusk had committed goalie interference on the play that he used a coach’s challenge, and he surely didn’t like the outcome when the officials upheld the call.
“I would have bet my life on that one,” Brind’Armour said as seen in a team-provided video. “It’s tough, especially the view that we saw after. It’s in-between his, (Hurricanes goalie Antti Raanta) pads loose, I’m all good with that, but the guy came from the side, pushes his pads, squirts the puck out, taps it in. Little different if the guy had come in from the front and was actually playing the puck. You can’t play the puck when it’s in-between his legs from the side and knock the goalie sideways, turn it to squirt it out.
“If you can, then I don’t know how (Nino) Niederreiter’s goal isn’t a goal in the first game when they said, ‘100 percent, not a goal.’ It’s frustrating because it almost feels like we’re living this again from four years ago when we had an issue. I’m not going to go into it. It’s tough. They’re too good of a team to just give them goals. We have no chance if that’s going to happen.”
Losing the challenge ended up costing Brind’Amour and the Hurricanes as the Bruins were gifted a power-play opportunity because of it. And Sebastian Aho’s high stick penalty on Patrice Bergeron moments later set the Bruins up on a 5-on-3 man advantage, which they capitalized on with Brad Marchand netting the go-ahead goal 44 seconds into the third period.
Officiating will be a key topic as the series continues with 13 total penalties called in Game 4.
The series shifts back to Carolina for Game 5 with the Bruins and Hurricanes taking the ice on Tuesday with puck drop scheduled for 7 p.m. ET. You can watch the game on NESN, along with an hour of pregame coverage.
