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David Pastrnak airs out frustrations with refs after OT loss to Sabres
"I mean, I felt like if anybody should get a power play in the overtime it should have been us."
The frustration was evident on a deflated Bruins bench on Monday night.
In the immediate aftermath of Boston’s overtime loss to the Sabres, several players hung their heads on the ice — while starting goalie Joonas Korpisalo slammed his stick as he made his way down the tunnel.
But as the Bruins made their way off the ice following their third-straight loss, Boston’s star winger David Pastrnak opted to give the officiating crew another earful on the frozen sheet.
Beyond the frustrations born out of another frustrating setback, Pastrnak was steamed over the calls on the ice that set the stage for Boston’s eventual 3-2 defeat at the hands of the cellar-dwelling Sabres.
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Alex Tuch’s OT winner with 11 seconds to go came on the power play for Buffalo — with Bruins winger Marat Khusnutdinov whistled for a trip against Ryan McLeod at 2:51 in the extra frame.
Despite that infraction against Boston, Pastrnak felt as though the Bruins also earned several opportunities to either go on the man advantage — or at the very least, offset Khusnutdinov’s penalty.
“I mean, I felt like if anybody should get a power play in the overtime it should have been us,” Pastrnak said postgame. “I think they’ve been having power plays the whole game. Yeah, that’s just my opinion. That’s why I was mad.
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“I thought Korpy got slashed, when he covered the puck twice on the power play, and then they could have evened it up, and they decided to look away. So frustrating that they got the power play opportunity in overtime, but at the same time, we made the mistakes on the puck to make it happen. But it’s very frustrating.”
Korpisalo did little to hide his frustrations during overtime, at one point drop-kicking the puck out to center ice in order to object to what he viewed as a post-whistle slash by Buffalo.
“I thought it was a penalty,” Bruins interim head coach Joe 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.”
Boston ultimately went 0-for-2 on the power play Monday against Buffalo — squandering what was over 50 seconds of a 5-on-3 opportunity in the first period.
Even though the Sabres did earn four power-play bids (scoring twice), the Bruins failed to capitalize on several chances to put Monday’s game out of reach before the contest even required OT.
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“We have work to do,” Pastrnak said. “We’re trying to build with every game. And like I said, if you look overall at the effort. The effort was there today. We played overall a much better game than last game.
“We can build from that. And as I said, we just need to be better — because, we’re going on the [West Coast] trip, and if you’re not going to show up there with effort and and hard work ethic, it’s not going to be pretty.”
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