Fraser Minten Sent to the Box for a Teammate's Slash, Then Talks the Referee Out of It

Fraser Minten did not commit the slash, and for once the player sent to the box could prove it before he sat down. In the first period of Boston’s game against Ottawa on Monday, Minten was assessed a two-minute slashing penalty that belonged to teammate James Hagens, told the referee exactly that on an open microphone, and watched the officials reverse the call, HockeyFeed reports. Ottawa won 4-1, but the clip outlived the result.

What exactly happened in the first period?

The wrong Bruin was named. Minten was given a two-minute minor for slashing as he skated toward the box looking clearly confused, because the infraction had been committed by Hagens, HockeyFeed reports. Minten called the error out immediately rather than serving time for a teammate.

NESN’s live blog catches the correction as it unfolded. Its first entry logs a slashing penalty on Minten; two minutes of game time later it records that the referees reversed the call about who goes in the box, Hagens came out and Minten was back in. The official scoring followed the second version: Hagens carried the penalty minutes, Minten carried none.

Why did everyone hear the argument?

Because the referee was wearing a live microphone. Officials mic up to announce calls, the same system behind the hockey referee signals every fan learns to read, and Minten’s protest went out on that channel as he made it, HockeyFeed reports.

That is the whole reason this travelled. Wrong-player calls happen quietly most seasons and get fixed in a scorer’s note. This one was fixed in public, by the player, on air, which turns a bookkeeping error into the rare officiating moment where the correction is more entertaining than the call.

Can officials actually change who serves a penalty?

Yes, and this is the distinction the clip teaches. The officials were not reviewing whether a slash happened; Hagens had slashed, and a minor stood. They were correcting which player the penalty belonged to, an identity fix the crew can make before play resumes.

The stakes were real for those two minutes. A wrongly served penalty would have put Boston on a power play in hockey defence with the wrong skater missing, and the sequence that followed was tangled enough on its own: the reversal left the teams four against four, then a tripping call on Matthew Poitras dropped Boston to a five-against-three that NESN called a massive penalty kill when the Bruins survived it.

Did the mix-up change the result?

No. Ottawa were already two goals up in the first period through Tim Stutzle, added goals from Drake Batherson and Michael Amadio, and won 4-1, NESN reports. Hagens completed his strange night by scoring Boston’s only goal in the third.

If anything, the incident sits in a week when the league’s off-ice judgement has drawn more attention than its on-ice calls, from the NHL pulling its ‘Hot for Hockey’ romance series inside a week to a fanbase mourning the first Saturday without Hockey Night in Canada since 1952. A referee being politely corrected by the player he had just wronged is, by comparison, the system working, just very loudly.

What happens next?

Boston host the Mammoth on Thursday, and the clip will follow Minten into that game as a reputation moment rather than a grievance: he was right, he stayed calm, and the record was corrected before it cost his team.

No league comment had appeared by Tuesday, and none is really owed. The lasting value of the sequence is in the hockey terminology fans picked up without noticing: a penalty is a charge against a player, not a play, and when the charge names the wrong player, the player is allowed to say so, even if the whole arena hears him do it.