Brandon Prust is a veteran NHLer. He knows better than to mouth off about the officials. Prust got himself in hot water on Sunday night in the dying moments to Tampa’s 6-2 win in Montreal. The Lightning now lead the Canadiens 2-0 with the second round series heading back to Tampa for Game 3 and 4.
The Bolts made the Habs pay for taking stupid, undisciplined penalties in Game 2.
In the late stages of the blowout loss, Prust was trying to fire up his boys when he fought Bolts D Braydon Coburn. Prust slammed Bolts goalie Ben Bishop and Coburn did the right thing by jumping Prust
Coburn and Prust each earned five for fighting.
Prust dug himself a deeper hole when referee Brad Watson handed Prust a misconduct, game misconduct, and a two-minute minor for tripping Bishop. Prust took a double minor earlier in the game and finished Game 2 with 31 total penalty minutes. Prust knows better than to act a fool while his team was losing a second round series two games to none. The Habs lost the game and home ice advantage. Prust lost his cool. More than once.
Prust and Bishop don’t like one another. On February 1, 2014 they fought during a TV time out in a game in Montreal.
On the way to his premature shower, Prust chucked one of his elbow pads at the Tampa bench. Several Tampa players laughed at and chirped Prust as he took his walk of shame past the Bolts bench.
GIF: Brandon Prust fires a glove at the bench in disgust pic.twitter.com/H2XOk451P1
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 4, 2015
Brandon Prust may want to start writing that cheque right now pic.twitter.com/nBlHnzV0IP
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) May 4, 2015My take:
Prust is a veteran. He knows better than to run his mouth about referees and their on ice commentary. Prust was wrong to make a public spectacle of himself. He should have taken his concerns to his GM Marc Bergevin who would have likely spoken with the NHL supervisor regarding Watson’s alleged comments.
The Canadiens are rattled right now and if they can’t get their collective act together, their season will end in Tampa.