Bruins vs Canadiens: Thugs Steal Spotlight in Bettman’s NHL

Montreal 4 Boston 1 (Bell Centre)

by Rick Stephens, AllHabs.net

MONTREAL, QC.– In the lead-up to this game, I heard Habs fans and some in the Montreal media pleading with Canadiens General Manager Pierre Gauthier to call-up Alex Henry, Ian Schultz and Andrew Conboy from the Bulldogs. The fact that the trio are not remotely close to being NHL-caliber players didn’t much matter. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the February 9 game where Bruins took liberties with Canadiens in the third period when they had a two-goal advantage.

We also heard far too much attention being paid to Milan Lucic. The Bruins forward may be having his best season but has padded his numbers by leading the league with five empty-net goals. Boston has a record of 21-1 when Lucic scores said the Kool-aid drinkers.

Well, Lucic scored tonight, and it didn’t matter. Make that 21-2. Credited with one hit and one shot, Lucic was mostly invisible.

As for the Hamilton trio, they weren’t needed. When the Johnny Boychuk attempted to go after the knees of P.K. Subban, Ryan White stepped in and taught the Bruins forward a lesson. The rest of the time the Canadiens stuck to playing hockey.

Montreal used their speed, skill and forechecking to pressure the Bruins defense and take advantage of suspect goaltending. Tuukka Rask was in goal tonight, but it wouldn’t have mattered who started. Rask and Tim Thomas have a combined 10-24 career record against Montreal.

The Canadiens took a 4-0 lead with just under five minutes left in the second period. That was the signal for Bruins players to begin running all over the ice targeting Habs. With 15.8 seconds on the clock, and the puck 30 feet away, Zdeno Charo shoved Max Pacioretty headfirst into a post near the Bruins bench.

Pacioretty was knocked out and removed from the ice on a stretcher. He regained consciousness and was able to move his extremities but was taken to the hospital for evaluation. An initial diagnosis points to a concussion.

At this point I think that it’s fair to ask Gary Bettman, Colin Campbell, Mike Murphy and the 30 NHL owners, what kind of league would they like to promote? You see, tomorrow the headlines will be about Chara coming close to delivering a career/life-ending blow to Pacioretty.

Instead if the NHL took head injuries seriously by imposing meaningful supplementary discipline as a deterrent, we could have been treated to these story lines:

Rookie Lars Eller scores twice to lead the Canadiens to their fifth straight win. The Danish center also had three hits.

Carey Price has won four straight games with a goals against average of 1.00 and a save percentage of .973. Price continues his domination of the Bruins with a 13-3-2 career record.

The Habs made a commitment to team defense with 35 blocked shots to Boston’s nine.

Over the past two regular seasons, the Canadiens are 9-2 vs the Bruins.

As it stands the NHL will likely assess Chara a two to three game suspension. The main-stream media, an accessory to the league’s inaction on head-shots, was already busy playing-down the hit and claiming that Pacioretty will suffer a concussion “only.” Apparently nothing has been learned with the best player in the game sitting on the sidelines.

When looking for a culprit, many reporters were willing to absolve Chara from responsibility pointing their finger instead at the Bell Centre. They reasoned that if the hit had taken place across the ice or in the corner, there wouldn’t have been an injury. Right, and if the game of hockey was played in a field of daisies with the players layered in bubble wrap, team athletic therapists would be unemployed.

One of the mainstream reporters from the Boston media even went so far as to sanitize a post-game quote by Chara to put his player in a more favorable light. It caused quite a stir on Twitter as I had posted the accurate quote.

Joe Haggerty works for Comcast Sportsnet New England and has a well-earned reputation for being a Bruins fan first and a reporter second. Haggerty tweeted this quote attributed to Chara. “I was riding him out and it was very unfortunate that at same time he leaned and hit glass extension.”

The correct quote by Chara is actually, “I was riding him out and it was very unfortunate that at the same time I pushed him that he leaned and jumped a little bit and just hit the glass extension.” You can listen for yourself here. That changes the meaning substantially, doesn’t it?

So, with the media blaming the building and Chara blaming Pacioretty, what will disciplinarian Mike Murphy do? If history has taught us anything, it’s likely that Chara will get a slap on the wrist and he will be back in the Bruins lineup to face the Canadiens on March 24. Odds are that Pacioretty won’t be making the road trip to Boston.

The 22-year old winger has 14 goals, 10 assists in just 37 games for the Habs. Given the uncertainty of concussions, what will this mean for his season or his career?

The Bruins and Canadiens have a storied rivalry but for the second straight time, the post-game discussions will be dominated by a focus on thuggery rather than hockey. This is your NHL, Gary.

All Habs game stars

1. Lars Eller
2. Carey Price
3. Max Pacioretty

Roster notes

Tom Pyatt, Yannick Weber and Alexandre Picard were a healthy scratches. Mathieu Darche and Jaroslav Spacek are out with injuries. Andrei Markov and Josh Gorges are out for the season with a knee injuries.

(AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson)