Bad Blood Battle - Bruins win nasty game

About 11 minutes into the game the game was already over for Penguins Brooks Orpik as he was taking off from Garden ice on a stretcher. The same thingh happened to Johnny Boychuk two days ago in Montréal, only this time the Bruins were on the other side of the medal ... sadly.


The nastiness started just seconds after the puck-drop when Orpik landed a hard but clean hit on B's  forward Loui Eriksson, who has missed several games due to a concussion (vicious hit from John Scott) earlier this season. Eriksson is not looking up as he turns and Orpik hits him with the shoulder or in other words he puts himself in a bad position and pays the price.
Regardless of the rather clean hit, this could/should been called as an interference penalty as the puck was nowhere near them.

Five minutes in Shawn Thornton wants to step up for his teammate and offers Orpik a fight, but instead of accounting for his actions Orpik refuses to fight Thornton and the Bruins enforcers ends up in the penalty box on a 2 minute roughing call.
Next up is Matt Bartkowski landing a hard hit just in front of the Bruins bench, Lucic can't get through 3 Penguins in the offensive zone as Engelland makes contact and a fight breaks out.
Engelland in contrast to Orpik, man enough to step up and fight, even makes a good battler like Lucic look kinda bad in that fight.

Four minutes later the emotional needel reaches it's climax as James Neal intentional knees Marchand to the head as the B's forward as laying on the ground. (Neal kneeing Brad Marchand)
Shawn Thornton sees the chance to take the law into his own hands as he's skating into the Pens zone ready to take revenge for his injured teammate.
He drops Orpik and punches him twice while the Penguin is laying on the ice defenseless, clearly violating one of the codes Thornton usually refers to. (Thornton knocking out Orpik)

Orpik is unconscious for several seconds as his head was banged to the ice, Thornton's night is over with a match-penalty resulting in a 3 minute powerplay for the Penguins on which James Neal of all people scores the game leading goal for the Pens.

Taking aside that Orpik didn't want to step up earlier and Neal's dirty action against Marchand it's just unacceptable what Thornton did last night.
It's just showing a lack of sportsmanship punching a guy who can't defend himself, regardless that we all know that Thornton is usually a class act on and off the ice.

Emotions went high and Thorty couldn't let cool heads prevail. At the end of the night Shawn Thornton himself might be the guy who's most dissapointed about what he did.
Last night reminded me a bit about game 3 of the Senators - Canadiens series last spring, P.K. Subban was punching Kyle Turris the same way Thornton did with Orpik and I remember beeing very upset about that.

In contrast to the Habs that night, the Bruins found their way to win their game in the final 1 minute and 26 seconds with goals from David Krejci and Zdeno Chara.
Yet still the negative side preponderates as the B's not just lost Loui Eriksson with another concussion, but also need to replace Chris Kelly (lower body injury) and obviously Shawn Thornton. Both Johnny Boychuk and Adam McQuaid were not in the lineup last night as they were replaced by Kevan Miller and Matt Bartkowski.

 Jordan Caron will play tonight at Toronto, just like the two guys called up from Providence beeing Ryan Spooner and Matt Fraser. If Kelly is out for longer the B's are forced to call up another P-Bruin as they clearly need a scratched forward for their upcoming western road trip.

Shawn Thornton will be suspended for at least six games, as he's having an in-person hearing with the NHL's Departement of Player Safety. Penguins Chris Neal will likely face a suspension aswell for his cheap shot against Marchand just seconds ahead of Thornton's mental meltdown.
After what we've seen in recent years and especially this season it's time for the NHL to finally step up and make a statement for players safety !

Fighting is not the problem in today's NHL, it's the nonexistent clean lines of calls on the ice and suspension off the ice. The whole incident could have been prevented by calling the penalty against Orpik earlier in the game, although it's easy to say that afterwards.