Teams get rid of 'garbage'

NHL Vice President of Hockey Operations Mike Murphy said Tuesday some of the post-whistle antics between the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins "has been addressed" with the teams.

Players from both sides have been taunting each other, stemming from Alexandre Burrows' biting of Patrice Bergeron's finger in a scrum at the end of the first period in Game 1. Maxim Lapierre stuck his fingers near Bergeron's face during Game 2, while Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic did the same to Vancouver players in Game 3.

"We will deal with the issues of the series, the chippy-ness that's going on," Murphy said. "(Vice President of Hockey Operations) Kris King is in charge of the series. We've addressed it. We've addressed it with the teams as early as this morning. I will be speaking with both general managers and coaches before the day's over about what we are seeing, the garbage that is going on, some of the issues."

There has been plenty of extracurricular activity by both teams after the whistle in this series. When the Bruins took a big lead in Game 3, some of that boiled over. Boston's Shawn Thornton earned a misconduct penalty for an extended facewash on Vancouver's Ryan Kesler, who later fought Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg after some post-whistle jostling between the two.

Boston's Andrew Ference and Vancouver's Daniel Sedin also earned misconducts for their part in an altercation after the whistle had been blown.

"We've addressed that and realize that's one of our strengths. We're not going to feed the animosity after whistles," Vancouver center Manny Malhotra said. "We're not going to gain anything from it and the referees are starting to crack down on the nonsense after the whistles. Our focus is on playing between the whistles.

"I think it's the nature of playoff hockey. As the series goes on, the rivalries and the animosity grows. I think that was an effect of being in the playoffs (Monday). You see a lot more hostility toward one another. But we've cleaned that up and we realize where our focus needs to be."

Both Lucic and Recchi said they were reprimanded by the Boston coaching staff after their taunting acts.

"I got in trouble for that," Recchi said. "(Julien) gave me heck for that. We didn't know this morning that he said something.  You know, it's emotional out there. But it won't happen again. Obviously when it happens to one of your teammates, they kind of mock you a little bit, when it happened in Game 1, it was a little bit -- you know, it's a little bit of frustration on our part. It is what it is, and we'll forget about it and get ready for the next game."