Vancouver's Alex Burrow said he was targeted by referee Stephane Auger in the Canucks' 3-2 loss to the Nashville Predators on Monday night. The winger, who scored twice, was in the penalty box along with linemate Henrik Sedin when Shea Weber scored a power-play winner for the visitors with four minutes left. And Burrow said the official had told him during the warm up that he was looking for a reason to get him.
"It was personal, it started in warm up before the anthem," Burrows said. "The ref came over to me and said I made him look bad in Nashville. He said he was going to get me back tonight and he did his job in the third. "He called me on a diving call I didn't think was diving, he got me on an interference call that I have no idea how he could call that and it changed the game. "It sucks right now for teammates that are battling hard for 60 minutes to win a hockey game, because of a guy's ego it just blows everything out of proportion and they're making bad calls and the fans are paying for it and we're paying for it."
The Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said the team would investigate Burrows' allegations. "We're definitely going to look into that," Vigneault said. "If those [allegations] are true we'll definitely bring it up." Meanwhile, Weber was booed in the same arena that he will be cheered on as a home favourite at next month's Winter Olympics. The defenceman can expect a much warmer reception when he plays for Canada than the cool send-off he received after blasting the power-play strike past Olympic teammate Roberto Luongo with just over four minutes left to play.
"I don't think I've ever heard cheers in this place, so that will be nice," Weber said. "It definitely had a little bit of that Olympic feeling. I think with the hectic schedule right now, we're playing every other night, it's probably a good thing." The Predators scored all three goals on special teams, Joel Ward opening the scoring on a short-handed effort and Ryan Jones adding a second period effort.
Elsewhere, Guillaume Latendresse scored the winning goal midway through the third period after setting up three others as the Minnesota Wild beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 "It's great for me to have the chance to play on a team like that," Latendresse said. "The chemistry's great. I like everything here." The Colorado Avalanche made it four wins in a row over Northwest Division rivals Calgary Flames after a 3-2 shoot-out win.
Milan Hejduk and Stewart scored in the shoot out to give Colorado a third consecutive regular season win, while goaltender Craig Anderson made 44 saves for the winners. "Forty-some shots on net and you keep the opposition to 20, it's disappointing to lose, I am not going to deny that," the Flames coach Brent Sutter said. "There is no question who the better hockey team was tonight, Anderson was the difference in the game."
The San Jose Sharks' Evgeni Nabokov made 33 saves in a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings. Dan Boyle had a goal and an assist and Dany Heatley scored his 26th goal for the Sharks. * With agencies
