Saturday night the Boston Bruins were dealt a crushing blow as star goaltender Tuukka Rask left the game with a concussion after being involved in a collision with New York Rangers forward Filip Chytil. This injury could seriously impact the playoff push as Boston is currently in a neck and neck race with the Toronto Maple Leafs for second place in the Atlantic Division. The more serious impact from this could be the league’s failure to prevent similar situations from happening again.
The injury Rask suffered may seem eerily familiar to fans of the Chicago Blackhawks as it was similar play to the one that resulted in Corey Crawford being sidelined with his second concussion in the span of a year. If you watch the two plays it’s fair to say neither collision was malicious and hard to reason if they were even intentional at all, both appeared to be fluke plays. Regardless of the intent the NHL cannot sit back and allow their star players to be taken out of commission with the guilty party seemingly walking away unscathed.
It has been proven year in and year out that in the NHL you’re only as good as your starting goalie allows you to be. How noticeable was Crawford’s absence last season when the Hawks were trotting out the likes of Jeff Glass or JF Berube in his place? When Carey Price left the 2014 playoffs with injury how quick did the Canadiens Stanley Cup aspirations disappear? Will we see the unraveling of the Bruins now that Rask is sidelined?
These situations and countless others prove how important, and sometimes taken for granted, it is to have a reliable starting goalie. The league needs to do a better job protecting these players because their impact is arguably most important to every team. Neither Chytil nor Evander Kane received any disciplinary action after their actions that left star goaltenders inured. While they may not have had the intent of injury, a fine or two game suspension may change the mindset of players as they are barreling towards the crease. Then again this is the same league that has seen star players such as Jonathan Toews and Sidney Crosby concussed on questionable hits and not disciplined the guilty party. How many more situations like this do the fans have to see before a change finally occurs?
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