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Bruins burned by another "WTF" review in loss to Cats

March 25, 2016, 1:08 AM ET [36 Comments]
Ty Anderson
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For the second night in a row, and for what feels like the 28th time this season, the Boston Bruins were left to lament yet another perceived blown video review that altered the course of the game in an eventual loss. This time, the blow came midway through the third period, when the would-be game-tying goal was waved off after a lengthy review, en route to a 4-1 loss to the Florida Panthers.

As the B’s pressed on against Roberto Luongo, it appeared as if luck finally landed in their favor as Patrice Bergeron looked to have tucked a goal in against Luongo’s pad 8:03 into the third.



“I think you need to call the league because I can’t explain it either,” Boston coach Claude Julien said of the non goal. “I’m as baffled as you are right now, and I looked at it many times here before coming out here. It looks like it’s in. It looks very conclusive. That’s two in two games now.”

Without ‘conclusive evidence’ that the puck went into the net, the Black and Gold’s would-be tying tally went by the wayside, the Bruins surrendered a goal on a beautiful deflection from Jussi Jokinen on the Boston doorstep a couple of minutes later, and the Bruins were done.

But Julien, whose night began with a video tribute featuring several Boston sports icons and fellow NHL coaches and ceremony commemorating his status as the club’s all-time winningest coach, was not.

“We think we’ve got great technology. We’ve got everything going, but people just think we were getting it right. I don’t necessarily agree with that because we’re obviously still not getting it right,” Julien, who has been on the wrong end of several challenges, noted. “I’ve got another coach that texted me, and there was, ‘WTF. How can that not be a goal?’ That’s coming from somebody who’s neutral.”

Center Ryan Spooner, on a line with Frank Vatrano and a revolving door to the right, scored Boston’s lone goal in the loss, while the Boston power play went 0-for-4 with just four shots on net.

The loss, coupled with a Detroit Red Wings victory over Montreal, trimmed the B’s lead for third place in the Atlantic Division down to just a single point, with the Red Wings having one game in hand, too.

“You have to be a professional and realize that you have to be at your best,” Bergeron said after the loss. “All we can really control is how we play and we’re not playing well so we need to be better.”

The loss was Boston’s fifth regulation defeat in a row, their longest losing streak since Jan. 2010, where they lost five games in a row in the midst of what was ultimately a 10-game losing streak (0-6-4).

Random thoughts and notes

- Ah, Video Review, you absolute son of a gun. Listen, logic -- and your eyes -- tell you that this was definitely a goal. But when it’s not ruled a goal on the ice, you need clear confirmation via video that it was a goal. The Bruins did not have that, and when there’s gray area, the initial call will always hold. So, if we're going by that logic and there's no clear angle that shows white between the puck and goal line like you've always needed to overturn a call, it would appear that this was the correct call.

It doesn’t mean that the call is actually right -- because again, I don’t think it was -- but you understand the rationale behind it. So where’s the fix to such a problem? Chips inside of pucks seems like an obvious one, or maybe cameras within the posts themselves. It seems that the ultimate go-to idea to fix everything in the NHL involves plugging a camera somewhere on the ice or the boards or whatever.

This is obviously one of the bigger issues around the league right now, and I think it does tie into the whole challenge/review system as a whole and how coaches and players alike seem to absolutely loathe the review system nature and process, but clearly something needs to be done about this situation.

- The Wheel of Scratches made its way to fourth-line forward Landon Ferraro tonight. That put Brett Connolly back into the mix after a two-game breather on a line with Noel Acciari and Jimmy Hayes on the left. It’s nice to see that the doghouse isn’t real for Connolly (though he finished this game with a team-low 4:45 of time on ice), whose struggles have never been for a lack of trying, and that the competition for ice-time is legitimate. But the best mix moving forward likely does involve Ferraro in as an additional defensive presence, as his absence forced Lee Stempniak into a role as the team’s third unit penalty-killing option on the wing.

- With four goals against tonight, the Bruins have now surrendered 119 goals against in 38 home games. Of those 119 goals, 17 have either been scored or assisted by an ex-Bruin, the latest two coming with Smith picking up a goal and Jaromir Jagr picking up an assist on the Panthers’ fourth goal. 17 out of 119 might not seem like a lot, sure, but that’s a solid 14 percent.

The Podcast to be Named Later with Andy Merritt and Ty Anderson



Up next

The Bruins will head to Toronto for a Saturday night matchup with the cellar-dwelling Maple Leafs. Toronto picked themselves up out of the league’s basement behind a 6-5 overtime win against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night, and wins in six of their last 10 games. But they also come into Saturday’s tilt with just 14 wins in 36 home games this year, and one win in four games against Boston.

Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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