St. Louis Blues Craig Berube Plays Ace In The Hole With Penalties

The St. Louis Blues have made it to the Stanley Cup Final by being cold, calculated and smart on the ice and in the media. While Craig Berube might seem to have altered that course, he really has not.

The St. Louis Blues have a problem in the Stanley Cup Final and it really is not the Boston Bruins. Do not take that the wrong way. Boston is a great team that will be deserving of a champion.

That said, the Blues biggest problem right now is penalties. St. Louis has taken, or been given if you prefer, far too many penalties in this final round of the NHL Playoffs.

The interesting thing is how Craig Berube has chosen to react to it. Berube has normally been a keep your mouth shut kind of guy and just focus on what you can control. That took a shift on the off day between Game 3 and 4.

After the Blues surrendered four power play goals on four shots, Berube finally let loose. Sort of.

Berube was still very measured in his comments. However, when the guy has literally said next to nothing about officiating in the past, any comment seems like a world shaker.

This is the coach that chalked it up to how the game is played when his goaltender got trucked in Game 1 of the first round. This is the same man that barely said two words about the hand pass in Game 3 of the San Jose series.

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Even national analysts agree that was one of the worst missed calls in recent memory. Berube shrugged it off because he knew his team could not be focused on something in the past and out of their control.

So, has he finally been pushed to the boiling point with the officials? Some will argue yes, but I feel this is his next calculated move – one that will hopefully pay dividends.

On the one hand, it is the pot calling the kettle black. Just a series ago, we all wanted Pete DeBoer to shut his mouth because it felt like he was pining for calls after every game. So, for Berube to sort of, kind of be doing the same thing should not go with a pass.

Still, it is different just because of how Berube has handled this entire postseason. There has been nary a peep about a bad call until now. In theory, that could carry more weight.

It is not as though Berube said anything that will get him into trouble. He merely posed an inquisitive statement to the media that will surely get back to the league and their officials.

“First of all, we were the least penalized team in the league in the first three rounds; now all of a sudden we’ve taken 14 penalties in one series,” Berube said, as reported by Emily Kaplan of ESPN. “So I don’t know. I don’t buy into all of that, to be honest with you. I think that we could definitely be more composed after the whistle. I think we’ve let some frustration get in there where we maybe do too much after the whistle. So we’ll clean that up, for sure. But like I said, we were the least penalized team in the league coming into this series. I don’t agree with all of the calls.”

Fans from the other side and those the Blues have defeated will surely have differing opinions. This comes off as a calculated and smart way to put things.

Berube is not saying he expects calls to happen his way in the next game, the way we have heard other coaches. He is not flat-out criticizing the job the officials have done either. He merely states that his team was the least penalized prior to now and suddenly, without a major change in how they have played, the zebra arm is flying in the air like a sail at full mast.

Berube slipped another little jab in when asked whether he has sought explanation for any calls. “No, I mean, they make the calls and don’t really give us explanations why,” Berube said in Kaplan’s piece.

The smart thing about these comments is they are not so much criticizing, but asking the refs to look at the games and learn from it. Even as Blues fans, there have not been that many calls you could throw a fit about in this Boston series. The main gripe has been the softness of the calls.

Few will argue that David Perron interfered with his opponent on the first penalty against the Blues in Game 3. It was also an embellishment and a call that has gone ignored countless times in these playoffs and past finals. The Blues also got checked from behind several times, but that’s neither here nor there.

Colton Parayko had no business with his stick up near the head of Brad Marchand. That said, Marchand crumpled like he had been dealt a knockout blow and the stick rubbed his face at most.

The same is true of a penalty taken by Joel Edmundson on David Backes in Game 1. Edmundson put himself in that foolish position, but Backes sold it like a trained actor.

That is why Berube is speaking out now. He knows his team has put themselves in these spots for the officials to make these calls.

He is simply stating, in a round about way, that Boston is not a team comprised of angels. The calls should even out in terms of the intensity of the foul committed, not necessarily the number given. I.e. if you make a soft interference call in the early stages of a game, all people want is that same call to be made the other way, not a bunch of unnoticed picks through the neutral zone.

Next. In A Perfect World, The Blues Would Scratch Perron A Game. dark

Time will tell how the Blues respond to this. Perhaps it really is just a tipping point where the team is tired of feeling treated unfairly, real or perceived.

So far, Berube has been a master tactician with his own locker room though. This might just be a little tweak in the media to further let his team know he’s got their back.

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