It's not at Ken Hitchcock levels but Claude Julien is apparently getting sick of Lindy Ruff. The Bruins coach popped off today about Ruff's post-game comments Friday night that Zdeno Chara could be looking at a suspension for an instigator penalty. Ruff had already spoken in HSBC Arena prior to Julien's comments b eing relayed back to Buffalo by the Associated Press.
"I've heard and read Lindy's comments. Hopefully, it's his way of taking pressure off his team," Julien said today at TD Garden. "If not, it's a lot of whining. Simple as that. Every coach has his tactics. You just worry about yourself. As I said last night, we seem to be the team that's doing bad things. They seem to be the team that's on the nice side of all that stuff and they do nothing wrong. It's tactics. Those are things in the playoffs that coaches use, hopefully to their advantage. I don't pay much attention to it."
Courtesy of the AP, here are some more thoughts from the Bruins about the Chara situation after their optional workout today. Chara was not available to the media.
Julien on the suspension being rescinded
"“I think when you look at what happened and how it was put on paper after the game, to us it didn’t make much sense. So (general manager) Peter (Chiarelli) put in a request to the league to get the instigator rescinded, which after review they did. So to me it was just common sense.
"To be honest with you, I wasn’t even worried because I couldn’t see that (a suspension) happening. It didn’t take them long to rescind that stuff and it just didn’t make any sense. A guy got slashed behind the leg with a two-hander and he just turns around and still has a glove on and takes a pop and then three guys jump him. So where does all this stuff come from? I don’t know. Again, it’s just common sense and the league looked at it and they felt that he didn’t deserve it and took care of it.”
Defenseman Andrew Ference
“There wasn’t a fight. Instigator is when there’s a fight, and there wasn’t a fight. The guy [Paul Gaustad] clearly slashed him in the ankle going up the ice. So you really want to talk instigator …”
---Mike Harrington
(www.twitter.com/bnharrington)
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Boston Bruins | NHL | Sabres
