This was the penalty that led to the Boston Bruins power play that Boston Bruins forward Mark Recchi scored on. The Tampa Bay Lightning took issue with this call that cost them the game.
TBO.COM ---Don VanMassenhoven, the referee at the trailing end of the play, put his arm up and called boarding on Stamkos, giving Boston a man advantage with under two minutes to play.I guess I can see why the on ice official called a penalty on the play; we have seen players in college hockey get thrown out of the game for the same hit. As a player you really have to be careful when you hit someone into the end boards, especially with the number of injuries that have happened recently. You run the risk of getting thrown out of the game or have a penalty called on you if a player has his back turned. In this case I think it's a grey area, it was close to being a shoulder to shoulder hit. The Bruins players thought it was a questionable hit...
"Not a penalty, a shoulder on shoulder hit,'' Boucher said. "I've watched it 10, 12 times and I still can't get myself to see what others saw. … This is a game I firmly believe should have went to overtime. It's just very, very difficult to swallow for everybody, everybody. I'm not going to point my finger at my players for this one. They battled hard enough to win this game. It was not decided on something I could control.''
To make matters a bit worse, Adam Hall got picked at the Tampa Bay blue line by Michael Ryder as the Bruins entered the zone, preventing Hall from getting to Dennis Seidenberg and putting pressure on the puck at the right point. One pass later, Recchi found open space at the top of the slot for the winning goal.
