The Boston Bruins suffered a tough 3-2 overtime loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Monday night. David Pastrnak did not hold back on what he saw as questionable officiating.
“I felt like if anybody should get a power play in overtime, it should have been us,” Pastrnak said after the game. “I think they had the power play the whole game. That’s just my opinion, that’s why I was mad.
“I thought (Joonas Korpisalo) got slashed when he covered the puck twice on the power play, and then (the referees) could have evened it up, and they decided to look away.”
The Sabres sealed the win on a power play goal with 10.7 seconds left in overtime when Alex Tuch deflected an Owen Power shot past Korpisalo.
Bruins interim head coach Joe Sacco also hinted at potential missed calls but stopped short of directly criticizing the officials.
“I thought it was a penalty,” Sacco said of Khusnutdinov's penalty. “But I did think before that—I think it was Mason [Lohrei] who had a two-on-one.
”I thought there was an opportunity for a call there. I thought he got slashed on his hands on the 2-on-1 before that.”
Pressed on whether he was surprised that the decisive penalty went against his team, Sacco chose his words carefully to avoid trouble with the NHL officials.
“I can’t comment too much on that, but from my vantage point, I thought there could have been a call on Mason, and then it looked like there was a penalty on our guy,” Sacco said.
The loss marks Boston’s third straight defeat, as the team now heads out west for a five-game road trip.
The Bruins are sixth in the Eastern Conference's wild-card race with a 30-30-9 record and 69 points, three outside of the postseason picture.
