Bruce Boudreau on Ducks/Kings officiating: ‘Worst calls I’ve friggin’ seen in a long time’

March 4, 2012 at 2:21 a.m.

The Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks each had 13 penalty minutes in their game on Saturday night. But Ducks Coach Bruce Boudreau disagreed ever so slightly with referees Dan O'Rourke and Ian Walsh on some of the Ducks' four minor penalties in their 4-2 loss to the Kings.

He didn't believe Luca Sbisa deserved a first-period slashing call; ditto the interference call on Nick Bonino and the tipping call on Niklas Hagman in the second. Two of these three penalties resulted in Kings power-play goals.

From Jeff Miller of the OC Register and Lisa Dillman of the LA Times, Boudreau was in vintage form in expressing his frustration after the loss:

"Some of the worst calls I've seen in a friggin' long time," he said. "A game of this importance, we can't have officiating making calls like that. I mean, there's three penalties that weren't penalties."
… "Everybody makes mistakes," Boudreau continued. "But if we're busting our ass all night long and playing our fifth game in seven nights. I mean, we need it better. I mean, from them…I don't know what their schedule is, if it's four nights in a row or what have you. But we can't have that. Just bad calls."

Here's Bruce:

Read the full quotes over on Ducks Blog. No word if Boudreau will personally see that the officials' room is stocked with Red Bull before games to cut through that travel fatigue.

We can understand why Boudreau is upset, what with his being stuck behind a bench for 60 minutes on Burger King appreciation night in LA. But we suspect when the NHL hears these critical comments, Boudreau will be feeling fine.