Max Pacioretty stretchered off

Max Pacioretty and Zdeno Chara have history, stemming from their postgame shoving match in January. With just under 16 seconds remaining in the second period on Tuesday night, their rivalry took a stunning and disturbing turn. Chara rode Pacioretty into the glass between the benches, leaving him motionless on the ice before he was taken off on a stretcher.

Chara was given a 5 minute major for intercession and a game wrongful conduct. The refs declared the period over. The Canadiens told that Pacioretty was witting and moving his extremities when he was taken to the hospital for check up.

Scary, scary scene but was it intentional? Clearly, Pacioretty had nudged the puck ahead and Chara finished a check to take him out of the play. The interference call was correct, the basic was based on the injury. Was it a case of reckless play by Chara or simply unlucky geography for the hit on Pacioretty?



That Pacioretty is "absolutely fit at local hospital, Boston Globe reports." Here's CSNNE's Joe Haggerty with words from Chara, who came off the Bruins team bus to speak with reporters: "We were racing for puck. I was riding him out and it was very unluckily that at same time he
"It's not my style to hurt somebody. I always play hard. I play physical. But I'm not ever trying to hurt anybody, and hope he's alright. It's very unlucky. Occasionally injuries happen in the game. It just happened that he got hit in the head by the glass extension."

"I think what people have to understand is Zdeno is not a dirty player," Bruins coach Claude Julien said in his NESN postgame interview with Naoko Funayama. "He certainly never meant for that to happen. I think if anything he tried to rub him out in the boards. Unluckily it's the partition that did the damage. If it's anywhere else on the ice, it might be a normal interference call at worst. Unluckily he hit the partition. That's something that' we've happen often. I know there's padding there and we've tried to reform that as far as helping guys not get hie in that area, but it still continues to happen."