DETROIT — The Bruins were left shaking their heads. There was the inconclusive offside play. There was the apparent high stick. There was the puck in the netting. And then there were the results of each of those plays for the Red Wings: goal, goal, goal.
In a game that spun wildly from side to side to side — the Bruins were up two goals, down two goals, tied — it ended, finally, at 6-5 for the home team, as the Red Wings won the Sunday afternoon contest at Joe Louis Arena.
But the Bruins were left wondering, was that where it should have ended?
“A lot of goals were scored today from some real questionable things,’’ coach Claude Julien said. “It was tough to swallow. But at the same time, our guys battled back.’’
The Bruins tied the score at 5-5 just 38 seconds into the third period on a Joonas Kemppainen shorthanded goal, the first goal for the center since Oct. 23. They had gone down by two on four straight Detroit goals, clawing back with goals by Dennis Seidenberg and Kemppainen.
But Detroit ultimately won the day, as Henrik Zetterberg redirected a shot by Danny DeKeyser at 7:37 of the third for the winner. It was Zetterberg’s second of the day.
Still, should they have been there?
After Brad Marchand opened the scoring eight seconds after puck drop — the fastest a Bruin has scored at the start of the game in the franchise’s history — Zetterberg nabbed his first at 2:44, picking up a third-chance loose puck.
Julien opted to challenge the play, trying to determine whether Detroit was offside before the goal. But the review was inconclusive, giving Detroit the goal and costing the Bruins their timeout.
“To me, when it’s inconclusive, I think the league has to maybe let us retain those kind of things because it doesn’t mean we’re wrong,’’ Julien said. “It doesn’t mean they are. So you lose a timeout on inconclusive.’’
The Bruins, though, recovered, scoring on goals by Zach Trotman (2:58) and Loui Eriksson (12:59) to go up by two goals. It was 3-1, and it looked as if the Bruins might possibly be on their way to yet another road victory.
Then came more controversy, at least in the eyes of the Bruins.
On Pavel Datsyuk’s first goal, at 14:46 on the power play, it appeared that Justin Abdelkader played the puck with a high stick, knocking it off the shoulder of Tuukka Rask, where it dropped for Datsyuk to put in the net. There was no review of the play. That was because, according to the league, the only play that can be reviewed is the one that leads directly to the goal (which was Datsyuk’s). With the Abdelkader high stick one touch removed from the one that scored the goal, it was ineligible for a second look.
But that was not clear to a befuddled Julien and the Bruins. Rask stood, immediately, and gestured to the officials.
“They can’t do anything unless I guess it’s called from the league, and they didn’t get that call, so that’s the part that I don’t understand,’’ Julien said. “I don’t know if there was a failure or if it was so clear to them over there that it never touched the stick, but when we looked at our stick, it looks like the puck dropped and it’s right next to his stick. So, anyway, you move on from those things.’’
Rask got a different explanation.
“I thought that second one was a high stick,’’ Rask said. “I don’t know what you guys saw. The ref told me that the video guy upstairs said that it was no high stick. I don’t know. It’s frustrating.’’
It wasn’t over, though.
After Darren Helm scored the tying goal at 3:13, banking it off of Trotman’s skate, Datsyuk scored his second of the game, on the power play at 6:38 of the second. But that, too, wasn’t simple. The puck appeared to hit the netting about 20 seconds before the goal was scored, but it was not noticed by the on-ice officials.
“They definitely weren’t,’’ Marchand said, of the calls going the Bruins’ way. “Even the amount of power plays they had, it was questionable. But the high-sticking goal and then the other one that hit the net, those are big game-changers. That shouldn’t happen in this league. But that’s the way it is.’’
Helm made the Bruins’ deficit two goals after that, at 11:01, seemingly sinking the Bruins. Rask was pulled, with Julien hoping for a momentum swing. And he got it, with his team crawling back with the Seidenberg and Kemppainen goals.
Eventually, though, it wasn’t enough, as the Red Wings jumped the Bruins in the standings and took over second place in the Atlantic Division.
“I think we ran out of gas a little bit at the end,’’ Julien said. “We have some players that have played hard here the last two games. This was a tough one for them to try and get that same energy we had, but I think the fact that we were able to come back and get back in the game after being down by two goals the way things were going was a good sign for our hockey club.’’
Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @amaliebenjamin.
