Were Controversial Comments from Canadiens' Brandon Prust Truly 'Baseless'?

Brandon Prust is a lot of things. He is a fourth-liner with a lot of skill, at least relative to his role. He is a penalty-killer. He is a fighter. More than ever with the Montreal Canadiens, he’s an agitator willing to occasionally live in the gray area between pest and dirty player. 

But is he a liar?

According to NHL Senior Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell, that seems to be the case. 

The NHL fined Prust $5,000 on Tuesday after he said some unflattering words about referee Brad Watson following Montreal’s 6-2 Game 2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning two days prior. The reason for the fine, according to Campbell, is because Prust’s words were “baseless” and “demeaning.”

What did Prust say? After his penalty-filled night that featured him throwing an elbow pad at the Lightning bench, he relayed his interpretation of the conversation with Watson to reporters:

"

I thought the original call was kind of soft, and I let [Watson] know on the way to the penalty box. He kept provoking me. He came to the box and called me every name in the book. He called me a piece of you know what, a [expletive], coward, said he’d drive me right out of this building. I wasn’t looking at him. He teed me up. That’s the ref he is. He tries to play God. He tries to control the game and he did that tonight.

"

Prust apologized during a media scrum Tuesday a few hours before the NHL announced his fine, but he never retracted his comments. He only said he wished he hadn’t gone public with them.

Campbell was correct: Those comments by Prust were certainly demeaning, as this CBC panel acknowledged:

But were they baseless? Is Prust a liar? Did he decide to impugn the integrity of a 20-year NHL official for fun? Because he was sad about a loss? Did he create a conversation out of thin air? 

It’s essentially a he said-he said argument. On one side, there’s Prust, who has never used a position of influence to berate officials for calling penalties against his son. On the other side, there’s Campbell.

There isn’t a sports league worth its salt that will let players destroy the credibility of its officials, whether there’s truth in the allegations or not. There’s nothing at all wrong with the NHL fining Prust for what he said, whether Watson said it or not. No matter what you believe, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Prust voicing his displeasure publicly was a horrendous idea and an improper way of handling the situation.

It’s the idea that what Prust said was “baseless”—that’s the problem. Is it really so far-fetched to imagine an NHL referee letting a modicum of power go to his head and unfairly influence the outcome of games?

Remember the incident between Alex Burrows of the Vancouver Canucks and referee Stephane Auger in 2010? Burrows accused Auger of confronting him on the ice before a game, warning Burrows that he was going to be getting hit with a lot of penalty calls because he had embarrassed him earlier in the season.

Burrows went public and was fined, just like Prust.

It was also Campbell who levied the fine and offered strong words about the lack of believability about the player’s story in a statement:

"

We have determined that Mr. Burrows’ account of Referee Auger’s comments to him before the game, and specifically Burrows’ suggestion that these comments indicated bias against the player or the Vancouver team, cannot be substantiated. While Referee Auger engaged the player in a brief conversation prior to the opening face-off, I firmly believe that nothing inappropriate was said and that Referee Auger’s intentions were beyond reproach.

"

Two years later, at the age of 41, with no congratulatory send-off by the NHL, Auger retired.

You know who retires at 41? Billionaires and people who receive suggestions that it’s in their best interest to do so. 

Campbell once called Burrows a liar. Now it’s Prust’s turn.

If Watson retires in a year or two, keep Prust’s “baseless” comments in the back of your mind.

All statistics via NHL.com.

Dave Lozo covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @DaveLozo.