Sidney Crosby and his coach aren’t seeing eye-to-eye with referees Francois St-Laurent and Jake Brenk.
The Penguins star and coach Dan Muse voiced their disapproval of an embellishment call handed out to the longtime Pittsburgh captain in the first period of the team’s Game 3 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday.
As he was heading to the faceoff circle, Crosby was high-sticked in the face by Philadelphia’s Garnet Hathaway, and the Penguins centre immediately went down. The refs gave Hathaway a minor for high-sticking and Crosby a minor for embellishment.
“We don’t have a single embellishment all year. Sidney Crosby doesn’t have an embellishment in 21 seasons. Stick in his face, they take both of them. I disagree on that strongly …. We didn’t come into this series to start (embellishing) now. Sid doesn’t embellish,” Muse said after his team’s 5-2 loss, per Greg Wyshynski of ESPN.
The game turned even nastier in the second period when the refs called 11 roughing penalties on the same sequence following a brawl. Pittsburgh got the extra minor, which Crosby took issue with afterward.
“I don’t know how (Bryan Rust) ends up with the extra (penalty) out of all of that. I don’t know how I end up with embellishment. It’s hard to understand, but you gotta play through that,” Crosby told reporters after his team fell behind 3-0 in the first-round series.
Rust said the refs ignored him when he asked why the Penguins were short-handed, per Josh Yohe of The Athletic.
“The game turned into a bit of a WWE match in the second period and they fed off that and they were able to capitalize,” Rust said, per DK Pittsburgh Sports.