The Boston Bruins aren’t too happy with the official’s decision on a failed coach’s challenge for goalie interference, which ultimately led to a game-tying goal standing as the Florida Panthers would go on to take Game 4 on Sunday night.
The Panthers, who who had a rough start the game with a 2-0 deficit in the first period, would fight their way back thanks to two goals during the third period of action to win 3-2 and take a commanding 3-1 series lead over Boston.
Boston is still contending that a game tying goal scored by Panthers’ Sam Bennett should not have counted, as replays showed Bennett had cross-checked Bruins forward Charlie Coyle onto goalie Jeremy Swayman before scoring into an open net, but officials determined otherwise.
Upon reviewing the call that the Bruins challenged, officials determined “there was no goaltender interference on the play” with the NHL Situation Room stating that “video review supported the referees’ call on the ice that the shove by Florida’s Sam Bennett on Charlie Coyle and the subsequent contact with Jeremy Swayman did not prevent Swayman from playing his position in the crease prior to Bennett’s goal.”
“My momentum hits him so he can’t get over,” Coyle said, according to ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski. “It’s a huge swing. They score, tie the game and get a power play out of it. We saw something different. They saw something different.”
“The fact is that Coyle was pushed into me. I couldn’t play my position. So that’s that,” Swayman said. “In the moment I didn’t know what exactly happened. I just know I couldn’t play my position. And the review showed that.”
“[The NHL Situation Room in] Toronto ruled that it was a good goal. That the player didn’t interfere with the goal. That’s the explanation I got,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “We thought that Coyle was on top of our goaltender, and if Coyle was able to stand his ground, he could have cleared the puck. That inhibited our goaltender from being able to react to play in the puck.”
“I know that our guys aren’t going to call a challenge unless they know what’s going to get reversed,” Swayman said. “Again, I just want to stick to facts, and the fact is that my own player was pushed into me by theirs and I couldn’t play my position.”
“So I’ll have an opinion and it would be ‘no’ in that it will have no impact on the play of the game and then the player,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. “The connection between the two, the contact between the two is not egregious at all, and the play just gets finished more than anything else. That’s in the situation book and it’s in the [NHL hockey rules] reel.”
“I wasn’t surprised. I mean, I think they got the right call,” he continued. “[I’m] putting that puck in before Swayman’s going to be able to get over whether Coyle is on him or not, so I think that’s the reason why it stood. And that’s how I saw it, as well.”
“It’s just one of those plays where he’s coming to hit me,” Bennett said of the incident. “I’m trying to brace myself. There’s no way I would have had time to think about punching him in the face like everyone.
“But people can have their opinions. I know it definitely wasn’t intentional. I’m bracing myself as he’s coming to hit me. Obviously, he’s a heck of a player and a big part of that team. So it’s unfortunate, but by no means was that an intentional punch in the face.”
“I don’t know who scored goals. I don’t look at players, it doesn’t matter,” Swayman said. “It went in, and that’s frustrating enough. So my job is to keep pucks out of the net. So that’s all I care about.”
“I couldn’t be more excited to get down there and bring it back to Boston,” Swayman said. “The reality is that we’re going to go to Florida and we’re going to play the same game and we’re going to get it done. And I have no doubt in this group and we have a lot of confidence and a lot of motivation to bring it back to Boston because our fans deserve a lot better, and we’re excited to do that.”
The series now shifts to South Florida for Game 5 on Tuesday with Boston facing elimination at the hands of the Panthers for a second consecutive season.
