The St. Louis Blues were clearly unhappy with the officiating following a pivotal Game 4 loss to the Nashville Predators.
The contest was scoreless in the third period when the Blues were tagged with an extra penalty following a post-whistle scrum. Cue Ryan Ellis, who scored on the ensuing power play, leaving Blues head coach Mike Yeo to backhandedly compliment the Predators in the wake of an eventual 2-1 loss.
"I'll be the first to admit I know that we could have killed the penalty, but I thought that they did a really good job lobbying for that," Yeo said, per Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
"Every stoppage, they're yelling at the refs, talking to the refs and it worked there. It's worked all series, let's be honest. We had one game where we've had more power plays than them and the other three, they're winning that category, clearly."
The Predators have indeed been awarded more power plays than the Blues in three of the four games so far, with the final results falling in line with that advantage.
| Game | NSH PP | STL PP | Final Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2-3 | 0-1 | NSH 4 - STL 3 |
| 2 | 0-0 | 1-5 | STL 3 - NSH 2 |
| 3 | 0-3 | 0-1 | NSH 3 - STL 1 |
| 4 | 1-4 | 0-2 | NSH 2 - STL 1 |
The Blues did get a power-play opportunity later in the third period Tuesday, but it was nullified by a call for too many men on the ice shortly thereafter, much to Yeo's frustration.
"That was not good on our part," Yeo conceded. "We get down and it was obviously frustrating to be down the way we were competing ... the way that we went down with the penalty call and it took us a while to regroup after that."
The Blues, now down 3-1 in the series, will have an extra day to regroup in an attempt to salvage their season, with Game 5 set for Friday back in St. Louis.
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