Vid has finally surfaced of the monster hit that broke the clavicle of Boston's first-round pick. The executioner is Colton Teubert, a Kings prospect who was picked 13th overall last year.
Put in a mouthguard before you watch this, otherwise the seismic wave will give you a concussion.
Hopefully Caron will have learned his lesson. This is why NHL players don't look at their laces when crossing the blue line.
Well, it's not like we didn't see this coming. It's April, we're in first place, we're set to play the Habs.
Now we know why Phil Kessel's been sitting lately: the Boston Globe reports that he's aggravated a shoulder injury that will put him out until at least training camp.
If you can stomach the details, read them here.
The Matrix.
Glove tap to Cornelius Hardenbergh for linking over to this quote, buried somewhere in the bowels of the THN website:
It's a battle of the M.A.S.H. units tonight in Boston. The NHL's most active rivalry will be missing, oh, a few names you may recognize.
Injury rundown
Boston: Phil Kessel will be out for about a month with mono. Patrice Bergeron is skating but has no timetable for return. Marco Sturm is done for at least the regular season with knee surgery. Milan Lucic has simply been AWOL for the past several games (hopefully he didn't share a water bottle with Kessel). Andrew Ference is getting closer to returning from his broken leg. Manny Fernandez is out tonight with an unspecified injury, but expected to return soon. Shane Hnidy took a puck in the face but is expected to play with a visor.
Montreal: Carey Price will sit with a "lower body injury" (aka groin pull). Saku Koivu is close to returning from a foot injury, but won't play tonight. Alex Tanguay could miss up to 6 weeks with a bum shoulder. Christopher Higgins also has an injured shoulder, but won't come back until after the All-Star break. Mathieu Dandenault is out indefinitely with a broken arm. Georges Laraque is still out with a groin injury.
Montreal's been dealing with their injury issues for a bit longer than Boston, so their callups have had a bit more time to gel with the rest of the team. Prospects like Kyle Chipchura and Matt D'Agostini have become quasi-regular players for the Habs, while Max Pacioretti and Yannick Weber are still finding their place on the roster (Pacioretti has been skating on the top line).
Meanwhile the Bruins have been racking up frequent-flier miles this week, sending Matt Lashoff back to Providence and recalling Martin St. Pierre, Byron Bitz, Martins Karsums, and Kevin Regan. Goalie phenom Tuukka Rask was recalled for one game and sent back down in order to get playing time instead of riding the pine.
Got all that?
Lines? We don't need no stinkin' lines: To say the least, it's going to be a hectic night for Claude Julien as he has to completely reassemble his lineup and try to manage line changes on home ice. It's a fool's errand to try and predict what he'll do, but here's a shot in the dark at what the B's lines might look like:
Kobasew-Savard-Karsums
Wheeler-Krejci-Ryder
Axelsson-Yelle-St. Pierre
Thornton-Nokelainen-Bitz
Yikes. This is starting to feel a lot like last season. But then again, if it weren't for last season's injury issues we wouldn't have discovered guys like David Krejci and Looch. Que sera sera.
Wait, some players will actually be available?: Among those actually able to dress for the game, expect the Bruins to lean most heavily on Marc Savard, Krejci and Zdeno Chara for production. One of the advantages to having good centers is that they can make nearly any linemate into an offensive contributor. Look for Kobasew and Karsums to charge the net hard and take advantage of Savard's playmaking wizardry, and Krejci's #1A line to get some extra ice time to continue their torrid streak.
As for Chara, the Bruins simply need him to be a threat from the blue line. With reduced skill in the forward ranks, Chara's slapshot can give his teammates a little extra breathing room and ideally set up some rebound opportunities. Whether or not he tallies on the scoresheet, Chara needs to have an active game.
Goalie matchup: Looks like it'll be Tim Thomas vs. Jaroslav Halak. Goalies can be the difference in a close game, etc.
The big picture: Winning a rivalry game is great, but there's more at stake in this game. The Bruins and Habs are two of the hottest teams in the league, and separated by 10 points for the division title. It's a safe bet the Bruins are going to come back down to earth soon, so a 6-game lead would be a very reassuring cushion against the Habs' winning ways. If Montreal takes this game, the pressure on Boston will ramp up significantly. Also, the hot Capitals (who lost to the Habs the other day) are still pushing to catch up to the #1 seed. The winner of this game gets a lot of marbles.
Ok, we've all had a couple of days to square with reality: Patrice Bergeron will never have a normal career in the NHL. He's still got the skill to be a 30-70-100 sort of player, but there is simply no escaping the fact that recurring concussions don't go away. Despite the cheery tone from the Bruins' front office, this isn't about his recovery from a single hit; it's about his ability to go out and play the game without becoming a perpetual IR listee.
Even worse for Pat is the fact that his game revolves around physical contact -- he's at his best when he's throwing shoulders in the corners and absorbing crosschecks in the crease. But if he's unable even to throw a garden-variety bodycheck in open ice, the rest of his game becomes marginal. If you have any emotional ties to the notion that Bergeron will make a triumphant return as a top-level player, now is the time to start weaning yourself of those hopes.
Long Term
It's hard to predict what this means for the Bruins in the long run. Bergeron might be serviceable as an occasional contributor, like Eric Lindros in his latter days, the sort of guy you try and bring back for the playoffs in the hope that he'll push you over the cusp. But try to project any farther than 2-3 years into the future, and the image becomes murky -- it's doubtful that he'll stand alongside players like Lucic, Wheeler and Krecji as they mature into their prime.
Short Term
In the short term, the Bruins will be without their second-line center pending Bergeron's evaluation and possible return in the spring. This might have been a devastating loss, except that he is no longer considered indispensable to the roster. Last season the Bruins made a suprising Bergeron-less charge into the playoffs, after most pundits assumed they couldn't compete without him. This season they sit atop the Eastern Conference, despite a tepid output of 4 goals and 14 assists in 31 games from Bergeron. He'd been snakebitten early on (Pat's 5.8% shooting is the lowest among all Bruins except P.J. Axelsson and Shawn Thornton), but lately he hadn't even been generating chances. Despite manning the point on an intimidating power-play unit, Bergeron hadn't scored a single goal on the man-advantage this season.
So, Habs fans, don't start printing division-championship t-shirts just yet.
It's a safe bet that Claude Julien won't tinker with the red-hot first line of Lucic-Savard-Kessel. Likewise, he's been getting great results from the "third" line of Wheeler-Krecji-Ryder. If anything, that "third" line has now become the Bruins' second-best offensive unit and further marginalized Bergeron and his linemates (Axelsson and Chuck Kobasew). As they say, when one door closes, another opens.
So, Julien is now faced with contructing an entirely new third line in Bergeron's absence. In St. Louis, he went with Axelsson-Yelle-Kobasew, but I don't see that lasting long. Yelle has been very solid, but his contributions are not as significant as the development of AHL callup Vladimir Sobotka, a high-energy center who seems a natural fit with Kobie. Axelsson is a bit of an offensive drag, but he only needs to fill in until Marco Sturm returns from IR; he seems a more natural fit on the fourth line with Yelle and Thornton.
As an armchair coach, I'd go with the following third and fourth lines once Sturm's ready to go:
Sturm-Sobotka-Kobasew
Axelsson-Yelle-Thornton
In the meantime, get used to the name Martin St. Pierre -- the guy who was considered a spare part only a few weeks ago, and now looks prepared to challenge for a center spot.
In the course of the season, you expect to deal with injuries -- but not like this. Stephane Yelle collided with linesman Mark Shewchyk during the second period of Monday night's game against Tampa, and let's be honest... he made Shewchyk look like the second coming of Scott Stevens.
Yelle is currently questionable for tonight's game in Washington, as he seems to have triggered muscle spasms in his ribs. First reports suggested he might be out for weeks, but the diagnosis has lightened and it looks like Yelle will be back in the lineup much sooner.
In the meantime the Bruins have recalled Czech pest Vladimir Sobotka from Providence on an emergency basis, with the intention of inserting him into Yelle's spot on the 4th line. Sobotka is not the most talented guy in the world, but he adds a healthy dose of sandpaper and has a knack for stirring the pot when the team needs a lift. More importantly, he has a legit NHL skill-set and Bruins fans have been waiting for him to get another shot at life in the big league.
Sobotka seems unsure whether he'll play tonight; I would assume Julien would play it safe with Yelle tonight and give Vlad the nod. That being the case, the Bruins PK unit would be shaken up slightly against the conference's third-best PP unit... which could have a significant effect on the outcome of this important game.
But it's not all bad news for Sobotka if he gets sent back down -- Friday night is Sobotka Bobblehead Night in Providence.
