All Habs News — March 16, 2011
It was an optional practise for the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre today. Only Alex Auld, Alexandre Picard, Brent Sopel and Mathieu Darche. Hal Gill stayed at home with an illness.
Tomas Plekanec and Jeff Halpern are nursing lower body injuries and are listed day-to-day. They will be re-evaluated on Thursday.
In the event that they aren’t able to play against the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning, Nigel Dawes and Aaron Palushaj have been recalled from Hamilton.
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Prior to the Capitals — Canadiens game, a peaceful protest was held outside the Bell Centre to bring attention to the problem of hits to the head in the NHL. About 200 attended the rally according to CBC estimates (Toronto Star’s count was considerably less at 75).
Montreal fans call for tougher injury rules
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Mike Murphy, the NHL’s senior vice-president of hockey operations, and the person who ruled on the Zdeno Chara hit was interviewed by Yahoo’s Nicholas Cotsonika. Murphy provided insight on what went into his decision-making.
To hear Murphy talk about the incident, it sounds like two players were in pursuit of the puck. (Except in this instance the puck was 30 feet away and being retrieved by the Bruins.)
“Max Pacioretty is an extremely fast player, big player, and Chara’s a big player and has good speed,” Murphy said. “This all unfolded at about 50 miles an hour. That’s how fast they move from the blue line, where Max chipped it, to the red line, where the stanchion is. I tried to get a feel for the speed and the decision-making of both players.”
Murphy reviewed video, watched coverage by sports networks, and talked to “players, coaches and general managers who had “no agenda in it,” mostly in the Western Conference.”
On the damning still photo showing Chara driving Pacioretty’s head in the stanchion, Murphy said, “We have to be careful not to let that influence us.”
Read the full story here: An inside look at NHL’s decision on Chara-Pacioretty
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In day two of the meeting of NHL general managers in Boca Raton, Florida, commissioner Gary Bettman steered the discussion towards legal hits that result in concussions.
“The Hockey Operations department determined in its study of concussions during the 2010-11 season that 44 percent of concussions were caused by legal hits.”
GMs focussed on ideas to strengthen current charging and boarding penalties. No mention was made of stiffer supplementary discipline consequences for the concussion caused by illegal hits.