Noel Acciari, Tyler Bozak had very different accounts of Game 5 non-call

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If you want confirmation the officials missed a tripping call on Noel Acciari in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Thursday night, look no further than Tyler Bozak.

After upending Acciari in plain view of the referee, the St. Louis Blues forward instinctively raised his arm to protest the penalty he assumed was coming.

But that penalty never came, and the Blues scored what proved to be the game-winning goal seconds later en route to a 2-1 win over the Boston Bruins at TD Garden.

Bozak obviously didn't confess his crime after the game, but he spoke a bit like a culprit who may have gotten away with something.

"It was just a puck battle for me," Bozak told Darren Pang of FOX Sports Midwest. "Obviously the game's fast, and you're trying to keep the puck in at that time and get the puck. And lucky enough for us, we got the puck back there and it ended up in the back of the net. So, we'll take it any way we can get it."

The veteran added to reporters he hadn't seen a replay of the sequence.

Let's compare Bozak's account to that of Acciari, who still was down on the ice when the Blues scored and had to be examined for a possible concussion as a result of the collision.

"It’s a missed call," Acciari said. "It has a big outcome in the game. They score a goal off it. That ends up being the game-winner. It’s just kind of embarrassing."

That's a pretty frank cricitism of the officiating, but Acciari wasn't alone in his opinion. Head coach Bruce Cassidy called the missed penalty "egregious" and suggested it's a "black eye" for the NHL, while defenseman Torey Krug insisted "that's a penalty every time."

Unfortunately for the Bruins, there's no real recourse. The NHL released an underwhelming statement on the non-call that translates roughly to "tough luck," and further criticism won't change the fact that Boston needs to win Game 6 in St. Louis on Sunday to keep its season alive.

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