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Crosby blames officials for wild second period

zebrascrosbycharagetty

Things got pretty nasty between the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins, especially late in the second period of Game 1 on Saturday, as you can see:

Instead of blaming controversial checks, Sidney Crosby pointed his finger at the officiating crew. He told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Shelly Anderson that they let the contest spiral out of control.

“They’re letting a lot go out there, and the more it gets like that, the more it’s going to escalate,” Crosby said. “You can only control and channel that stuff so much. You keep letting guys do that stuff, you’re just going to push the envelope. That’s something we obviously want to stay away from, but it’s kind of a natural thing when it gets like that.”

The 25-year-old indicated that there might have been a lack of clarity in what was allowed and what would be penalized.

“It was just hard to gauge,” Crosby said. “Interference calls where you barely catch a guy, and then you’re allowing punches to the head. Are we going to play, or are we going to call those little things once in a while? It’s hard to get a temperature on the game when that stuff is going on. Then you let a few of those go and everything starts getting out of hand.”

Still, he ultimately came to the same conclusion that many likely did at home.

“We’ve just got to focus on playing.”