Tuukka Rask concussion another example of teams taking liberties with Bruins

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BOSTON – Once again a Bruins player was laid out on the ice, and then helped off wobbly-legged after clearing suffering a concussion during the in-game proceedings.

This time it was Tuukka Rask knocked out of the first period of Boston’s 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers on Saturday night in their final game ahead of their week-long bye and All-Star weekend. The long break will give the Bruins netminder a lot of time to potentially recover from the head injury, but there was no denying the violence of a collision where 6-foot-2 Filip Chytil smashed into Rask after getting shoved from behind by D-man Charlie McAvoy.

“I had two hands on my stick, I didn’t feel like I shoved him at all, just unfortunate, it sucks, you hate to see it,” said McAvoy. “Obviously Tuukka’s a huge part of our team, he’s been playing great for us so you don’t want to see that. We’ll be hoping the best for him, praying for him.

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“It was scary, he went down and he seemed down and out. I saw firsthand the force that that guy went right into him with, and it didn’t look good right away. I just wanted to make sure he was okay and he came back to, got him off the ice. Hopefully he’s feeling alright right now.”

It looked like Chytil caught Rask right in the jaw with an elbow as he went airborne, and the Bruins goalie was seeing the cartoon birds dancing around his head as he was gingerly helped off the ice by his teammates and the Bruins medical staff. Certainly it felt more like an accident than a purposeful, malicious attempt to hurt the goalie, but there was also no denying that Chytil didn’t hesitate to go as hard as possible toward the Boston net.

There certainly wasn’t any fear in the young forward’s head about charging into the crease at maximum velocity.

Rask marks another concussion for the Bruins after David Backes, Charlie McAvoy, Urho Vaakanainen and Jake DeBrusk have all missed significant time with concussions this season, and the Bruins have had close calls with big, heavy and high hits thrown at David Krejci among others. Some will say this happens to every team across the NHL now, and that players simply don’t have the same tacit respect for each other on the ice as they once did in the old time hockey days.

But it was interesting to watch the Bruins carefully use Lady Byng-level manners when skating around the New York Rangers net with Henrik Lundqvist between the pipes. There was never even a hint of the Bruins rushing King Henrik with the same ferocity even though the Bruins never trailed by more than a goal during the loss.

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It was even more interesting to watch old friend Adam McQuaid get a first period video tribute for heavy hits, blocked shots and plenty of rollicking hockey fights along with being one of Boston’s Stanley Cup champions in 2011. Then later on in the game he tangled with Brad Marchand along the end boards in the second period, and then jumped Chris Wagner in the final minutes of the third period after he’d thrown a thunderous hit on Jesper Fast. It certainly wasn’t ideal timing for McQuaid to get involved as it gave the Bruins a power play down a goal in the third period, but it also showed what the former Bruins defenseman was all about.

McQuaid wasn’t thinking about the circumstances, he was merely reacting as a player trained to have the back of his teammates whenever opponents take a run at them. Couple that with the sequence from Philly earlier this week when Jori Lehtera drilled Ryan Donato from behind into the boards, and then the Bruins took long moments before reacting. Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson grabbed Lehtera by the shoulder and held on for a couple of seconds, and Zdeno Chara argued with the referees for a penalty call before joining the fray to belatedly jump to the defense of his teammate.

If McQuaid were on the ice he would have made a B-line for Lehtera and let him know in no uncertain terms that you can’t mess with Bruins players on his watch. That’s something that’s absolutely missing from this Bruins team as small players like Brad Marchand, Torey Krug and Noel Acciari have been left to defend their teammates most often this season.

So what can be done about this?

Certainly the Bruins need a top-6 winger or a third line center much more desperately than they need a fourth line brawler, and their biggest need is scoring power up front to offset some of the pressure on Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak. But there’s a very real danger that some of those players won’t be healthy and in one piece if the Bruins continue on their current path, and opponents don’t have the same respect they once did for the Black and Gold when Milan Lucic, Shawn Thornton and others like McQuaid patrolled the ice ready to defend their teammates no matter the cost.

The Rask concussion is just the latest example that opposing teams are skating around and taking liberties with the Bruins this season, and that isn’t going to change unless the Bruins decide they’re going to do something about it.  

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