Sounding off on a delayed whistle
MONTREAL - If you've lived your life believing there's virtue in the philosophy, "better late than never," last night's call against the Bruins' Jeremy Reich by referee Mike Leggo no doubt has brought you this morning to a point of deep inner reflection and agonizing reappraisal.
In the second minute of overtime, Reich reached out his stick and placed its blade somewhere in the skates of Canadiens defenseman Andrei Markov. It was enough for Markov to slip and fall, and, hey, in America those types of slips-and-falls (the wink-wink, nudge-nudge variety) usually send a pack of lawyers scurrying to your door within nanoseconds.
Leggo, observing said slip and fall from behind the goal line, maybe 40 feet from the play, immediately did . . . well, some deep inner reflection. Long . . . seconds . . . ticked . . . by and play continued . . . and continued . . . and continued.
It is here that we can only surmise that Leggo was counting, meditating, and I'm willing to bet his inner dialogue went something like, "One Mississippi . . . Two Mississippi . . . Three Montreal!"
Figuring that "Montreal" is a wee bit shorter to say than "Mississippi," that puts the delayed call on Reich (tripping, Markov) at about 2.5 seconds, in the thick of a feverish, emotional, and, for the Bruins, crucial playoff game.
Only 59 seconds later, Alex Kovalev ripped home the power-play goal that handed the Canadiens a 3-2 victory in Game 2 of their best-of-seven playoff series. The squads will be back at the Garden tonight for Game 3, with the Bruins needing to win four of five against a team that holds a 10-0 record against them since the start of October.
Slim hope or fat chance. Take your pick.
"Brutal," said veteran Bruins pivot Marc Savard, holding back his feelings the best he could about Leggo's call against Reich. "A great hockey game like that tonight, and we all saw how it was decided."
Bruins coach Claude Julien, irate behind the bench when Leggo's arm eventually went up to signal the penalty, after the game said, "I'm not here to criticize the referee, it's tough enough as it is, and they have to call it on the spot. But I think it's pretty obvious, when that happened, I looked up and his arm wasn't up, then it was up. Did he need time to think about it? I don't know. That's his call."
Only seconds before the delayed tripping call, according to Julien, one of the Canadiens raked a stick across Reich's face, but there was no call made on that.
"[Reich] didn't embellish it," mused Julien, "so it didn't pay off. I guess you have to embellish these things."
The game over, Reich exited the penalty box and initially looked as if he would exit immediately to the dressing room. But he turned and headed to the scorer's table, where Leggo and his fellow referee, Paul Devorski, gathered. As Reich headed in their direction, directing words their way, one of them - it appeared to be Devorski - immediately shooed him away.
"I got the stick in the face before I got my penalty," said Reich, who didn't linger after briefly stating his case. "I was asking if he had any opinion on that."
Contrary to the series opener Thursday, the Bruins had a chance in this one, a very good chance, mainly because they were able to hold the Habs at bay for most of the first period. The Bruins didn't panic. They weren't mesmerized by the screaming crowd of 21,273. They were smart, composed, and able to withstand some big hits by the Habs.
What they couldn't do, once again, was put a puck in the net, until Peter Schaefer finally cut the lead to 2-1 at 3:58 of the third.
Julien, after watching his club's sorry effort in Game 1, benched Phil Kessel in favor of the grittier Vladimir Sobotka, and he swapped in the rugged Andrew Alberts for the ailing (lower torso) Dennis Wideman. Even if Wideman had not been hurt, it was a swap that had to be made - the ex-Blues defenseman was slow, out of synch, and prone to big boo-boos in Game 1.
"If you look at that first game, they extremely dominated us, as far as grit was concerned," said Julien. "We decided to add some grit."
By the time Roman Hamrlik ripped in his slapper at 18:30 of the first period, the Bruins already had posted a dozen shots. Not bad. Especially for a team that landed only 18 shots across 60 minutes Thursday.
The show of shows, and one that will keep popping up on highlight reels throughout this year's playoffs, and maybe for years to come, was the amazing work by Kovalev that led to the 2-0 lead. One of the world's truly elite talents, Kovalev took young Bruins blue liner Mark Stuart for a round-the-world tour, holding him off with shoulder and arm as he skated a huge full circle around the Habs' offensive end. It was Globetrotter-like in execution, and Stuart the Washington General-like foil.
Kovalev finally circled out from behind the net, to the right of Tim Thomas, and shoveled off a shot that was deflected into the slot. Patrice Brisebois made a point-blank attempt on the loose puck, one that was turned back by Thomas, but in swept Sergei Kostitsyn to make the easy rebound putaway. Habs, 2-0.
Once down by a pair, the Bruins finally gained some real traction in the series, first with the Schaefer strike, and then when rookie David Krejci potted the equalizer with a five-on-three advantage.
But then came Kovalev, standing along the left wing half-wall, pulling back and hammering his kill shot slapper to the top right corner, far side on Thomas. In a flash, traction turned into a familiar set of bleu-blanc-rouge tire tracks up the backside of the Black-and-Gold uniforms.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Montreal.
"We worked hard," said a near-disconsolate Savard, "and we all know we deserved a better fate."
Not a fact he had to embellish.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.
