Fraser Minten was skating toward the penalty box at TD Garden on Monday with the look of a man who knew something had gone wrong. He’d been given two minutes for slashing midway through the first period against Ottawa. He hadn’t slashed anybody.
The player who had was standing a few feet away in the same jersey.
Minten told the referee as much on his way over, and because the official’s microphone was live, the entire conversation went out to everyone watching. The man actually responsible was James Hagens, the 19-year-old rookie centering Boston‘s fourth line.
Can NHL referees change a penalty call?
Officials are permitted to correct the identity of a penalized player before play resumes, which is exactly what happened here. Once Minten made his case, the crew sorted out who belonged in the box, and the slashing minor was recorded against Hagens at 15:15 of the first.
NESN’s live coverage of the game captured the sequence in rather dry fashion: the referees reversed the call, Hagens went in, and Minten came back out.
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Hagens did make up for it later. Having also coughed up the puck on a turnover that sprung Drake Batherson for a breakaway goal, the rookie stole the puck behind the Ottawa net early in the third period and banked it in off goaltender Samuel Ersson for Boston’s only goal of the night.
It wasn’t close to enough. Tim Stutzle scored twice as the Senators won 4-1, with Boston going 0-for-6 on the power play this season and dropping to a start that has Marco Sturm already shuffling his lines.
As for Minten, the 22-year-old signed a seven-year, $50.4 million extension with the Bruins last month, which makes two minutes for someone else’s slash a particularly poor use of his evening.
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