Former ref Kerry Fraser says Canadiens' Prust a marked man

Kerry Fraser may not be an NHL referee anymore, but his words still hold water.

Fraser, who was an official for 37 years and wore the black-and-white stripes for over 2,000 NHL games, spoke Monday about Brandon Prust's altercation with referee Brad Watson during his team's Game 2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

"You can’t win," Fraser told Michael Traikos of the National Post. "What’s the end game to all of this? The end game is he questioned the integrity of an official and there’s not a win in that."

Fraser continued by saying that referees have the backs of their colleagues, similar to the way players do.

“Brandon Prust has engaged himself in something that’s going to take him into an area where he doesn’t want to be part of, because officials are human and they’re part of a team too," the ex-referee said. "If you look at the team concept from a hockey players' perspective, they stand up for their teammates. The same goes for officials."

Prust, who the Canadiens will deal with internally, accused Watson of verbal abuse following a first-period penalty in Montreal's 6-2 loss Sunday.

“I thought the original call was kind of soft and I let him know it on the way to the penalty box,” Prust said of Watson. “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 mother-f’er, coward, said he’d drive me right out of this building. I kept going, ‘Yeah OK, yeah OK, yeah OK.’ He kept on me, he kept on me. I kept saying ‘Yeah OK.’ I wasn’t looking at him and he (gave Prust the unsportsmanlike). That’s the ref he is. He tried to play God. He tries to control the game and he did that tonight.”