The missed high-stick is egregious, but the Sharks wouldn’t have been in the position of trying to stave off overtime if they hadn’t allowed three goals in the first period. That game was intense and shouldn’t have turned out the way it did, for a couple reasons. The Bruins’ only shot in overtime ended the game with bad defensive coverage by the Sharks. The Sharks controlled play overwhelmingly in overtime with seven shots. The play should have been blown dead immediately, but Wagner was allowed to tap the puck across the goal line. When a puck is struck with a high stick and subsequently comes into the possession and control of a player from the offending team (including the player who made contact with the puck), either directly or deflected off any player or official, there shall be a whistle. Then the refs missed a high stick right in front of the net.Ĭhris Wagner batted the puck out of the air from eye-level to put the puck into the net.īatting the puck above the normal height of the shoulders with a stick is prohibited. The Sharks had kept the Bruins from taking a shot for approximately 20 minutes of gameplay. Thornton’s third gave the Sharks their first and only lead of the game with six and a half minutes remaining. Joe Thornton contributed two scrappy goals close to the net before completing his first hat trick since October 2010 with a snipe through his defender. But they improved over the course of the game, and even took dominance from the middle of the second period to the middle of the third period. The Sharks got off to a bad start, allowing three goals in 10 minutes in the first period. What could have been a monumental Sharks win was wrecked by poor refereeing in the final 25 minutes of action tonight.

Bruins score