Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom addressed the media briefly about his one-game suspension for cross-checking Rich Peverley. He was terse and cut the talk short himself after about a minute.
“I did what I had to do. I think it was stupid on my part,” Backstrom said. “I’ve got to deal with it now. One game, whatever I don’t like it or whatever. I’ve got to deal with it.”
Backstrom acknowledged that he thinks Boston appears to be targeting his head. That was a charge coach Dale Hunter lobbed at the Bruins on Tuesday. Backstrom suffered a concussion on Jan. 3 and missed 40 games total. He went after Peverley when he saw the Bruins forward exchanging trips with teammate Alex Ovechkin. But Boston’s players and coaches vehemently denied they were intentionally trying to re-injure Backstrom.
“It’s ludicrous. It’s ridiculous. Okay? There’s always going to be emotions in games and there’s things that are happening,” Boston coach Claude Julien said. “Like I said, there was three cross-checks [by Washington] and they penalized one and suspended one. But we’re not whining about the referees and what’s going on here. We need to win a game and we need to win a series and that’s where our focus is on. That’s what it should be.”
Remember, this is the same Boston team missing forward Nathan Horton (Jan. 22 concussion) and who lost center Marc Savard (concussion) two years ago to a head injury. Star center Patrice Bergeron himself once missed an entire season in 2007-08 with a concussion. It’s been an issue with the Bruins, too.
“No. I would hope not. We’ve been in the middle of it on the other side of it with [Marc] Savard, [Nathan] Horton and me [having deal with concussions],” Bergeron said. “So it’s not fun. You never want that to happen. We’re worried about playing playoff hockey, playing hard and within the rules while finding results. Games are played hard, especially this time of year. I haven’t seen anything that’s out of the ordinary with our series.”
But let’s be honest – there’s no quarter given, either. Boston goalie Tim Thomas smashed his blocker into Backstrom’s head during a play in Game 2. Rugged power forward Milan Lucic wrenched Backstrom’s helmet off during another scrum in Game 3. Backstrom was also clipped at the offensive blueline during that 4-3 loss by a Boston defenseman – though no penalty was called.
“Just got to play hard against [Backstrom], regardless,” Lucic said. “Just because a guy’s injured doesn’t mean you go out of your way to re-injure him, but you don’t go out of your way to be light on him. You still have to play against him like you would any other player.”
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