The Pittsburgh Penguins lost more than just a hockey game, Saturday night.
In the first period, Brooks Orpik was thrown to the ice and punched repeatedly in the head by Shawn Thornton. Orpik remained motionless on the ice and required a stretcher to leave the arena en route to a hospital.
Penguins officials stated that Orpik was conscious and able to answer questions while in a Boston Hospital.
With Rob Scuderi, Beau Bennett, and Paul Martin already on injured reserve, and Evgeni Malkin missing his second straight game with a lower body injury, the Penguins could ill-afford to lose Orpik for a long period of time. At this point, however, that seems very likely.
Thornton was ejected from the game.
Chris Kunitz got the Penguins out to a 1-0 lead early in the first period, scoring on the power play after Thornton was called for roughing Orpik in a separate incident.
Sidney Crosby crossed the attacking blue line, stopped, and sent a pass to Kunitz along the half boards. Kunitz tried to center the puck back to Crosby in front but it went off of Zdeno Chara’s leg and into the net.
Patrice Bergeron pounced on a loose puck and fed a pass to Reilly Smith who blasted the puck past Marc-Andre Fleury.
James Neal took a penalty for kneeing Brad Marchand. As the whistle blew, Orpik became engaged with a Boston player when Thornton skated over and threw Orpik to the ice.
With Neal coming out of the box and the Penguins having three minutes remaining on the five minute major to Thornton, Matt Niskanen wired a long pass to Neal who beat Tuukka Rask short side with a perfect wrist shot.
The Penguins dodged some bullets in the third period but couldn’t hold on to the lead with under two minutes remaining in the game.
Milan Lucic’s pass, intended for Chara, deflected off of Marc-Andre Fleury and came out to David Krejci in the slot. Krejci didn’t hesitate and fired the puck past Fleury who was screened by multiple players.
With under 15 seconds remaining in the game, Chara gave the Bruins the lead with a wrist shot in almost exactly the same place as Krejci’s shot.
- In their previous match up, the Penguins and Bruins combined for four penalty minutes. Saturday night, they produced 40 minutes in penalty time.
- Chris Kunitz has six goals in his last five games.
Three Stars
- Zdeno Chara
- Dennis Seidenberg
- Sidney Crosby
Photo courtesy of NHL.com
