Habs' Julien slams officials after loss to Stars: 'We had to beat 2 teams'

Montreal Canadiens head coach Claude Julien ripped into the officiating crew following his club's 4-3 overtime loss to the Dallas Stars on Saturday.

”Like I said, (the officials) looked frustrated, or one of them looked frustrated tonight - the referee," Julien said after his team surrendered a 3-0 lead to lose in the extra frame, according to Sportsnet's Eric Engels. "He should have been, because to me it was embarrassing."

"I can't say anything else. We take responsibility for some of our stuff and when we're not good I'm going to stand up here and say, 'we weren't good enough tonight.' Well, tonight we had to beat two teams and it was tough."

Montreal, which has drawn the third-fewest penalties in the league this season, did not receive a power play in the loss. Julien believes the officials missed a number of calls that could have halted the Stars' momentum.

"But in those situations after that, we could have had power plays ... (Joel) Armia - if that's a hook, well then in overtime there should have been a penalty on him," Julien said. "Max (Domi), in overtime there, gets a stick to the mouth, he's bleeding from the mouth, there's no penalty there."

Following Tyler Seguin's overtime winner, Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher engaged in a shouting match with one official before breaking his stick in frustration.

The Canadiens have now lost four straight contests. They sit eight points back of the Atlantic Division's third seed with only 21 games remaining.