Zdeno Chara/Max Pacioretty incident

Zdeno Chara did what a lot of hockey players in the Bell Center and hit Max Pacioretty into the boards and Max hit the stanchion that was at the end of the bench opening and the beginning of the glass and of course the fans have cheered very loudly when it is a Canadiens player driven an opponent into this same spot. If Chara had not finished his check and Pacioretty had gotten past him and gone down and scored a goal to make it 5-0 Canadiens and the talk would be about the 6'9 Chara who will be 34 years old next Friday as he did not finishing his check in a blowout loss which will put him on a huge hot seat going into the playoffs with a top 3 seed. The reality is that the check happened in the wrong spot in arena as it just would be a solid hit into the boards and it was not a hit from behind and the broken neck and the serious concussion that Pacioretty suffered was an accident. The only concern that I have is that it looked like Chara followed through with his hand and may or may not have lead Pacioretty's head into the stanchion which would be a split second decision.

The ramifications of this incident is that the Montreal Canadiens will have to put up a lot more padding on the stanchion while Mike Murphy decided that because Chara has a clean record he would not receive a suspension for his act on the ice. we learned that people in Montreal now the number for the police as a number of them phoned the police and demanded that some legal action needs to be taken towards Chara. In a response to this from the police is that they will look into the situation and I believe that it is to try to come down the citizens of Montreal and some how air canada has come forward and is thinking about dropping their sponsorship of the NHL which Gary Bettman feels is fine because he has a feeling that other plane companies will come forward and pick up the NHL's charter business as the teams need to get from game to game in their 82 game season plus playoffs. Max Pacioretty from his hospital bed with his broken neck said that he was disappointed in the league not handing down a suspension which is a normal reaction from a person in his position and also that he does not remember what happened to which is where the concussion fits in so he watch some replays of the incident on TV and feels like Chara lead his head into the stanchion but replays make everything look worst.

In the end I believe that Chara was just finishing his check and had no idea that this would be the end result but I also believe that one of these days the NHL will need to put their foot down hard on hits to the head so even if Chara got like the rest of the season and playoffs and the league set now guidelines for these head shots I would of not have a problem with it even though he did not deserve it. A playoff match-up between the Bruins and Canadiens would be like a Red Wing and Avalanche battle at the turn of the century and it is not only this incident as the game before this one that they had played against each other had a whole lot of penalties including Carey Price in a fight and a total of 14 goals scored in the game which was the back drop to this game.

Will see what happens next

Tom Mehegan