IIRC "drawing blood" used to be an automatic 5-minute major.NHL penalty rules are fucking stupid. Grzelcyk gets his head drilled into the boards, perhaps ending his season, and that is a 2 minute minor. An accidental high stick draws a cople of drops of blood and it is a double minor? Idiotic. Is there a player in the league who would prefer to experience what happened to Gryz over getting a little cut?
I do think its almost that simple. The remaining 5 got worn down by the extra minutes, and Clifton especially looked discombobulated with the new rotations.The biggest issue I saw was the constant rotation of d-men, which I think wore them down. You especially saw this on the two Clifton penalties. They were rotating d-men out every 20-30 seconds since there were only 3 available for the PK, given they aren't going to put Krug out there. That said, they had to put Krug out there on the double minor once they got trapped in their zone for about a minute before going on the 4 on 4, which goes to show the desperation they were in to give guys a rest.
And Grzelcyk's skills are especially important against the Blues.