Before the Bruins suffered a key injury when Hampus Lindholm took a hard hit from Andrei Svechnikov Wednesday night, the Hurricanes suffered one of their own eight minutes into Game 2.
While on the power play, the Bruins tried a stretch play with a long dump-in that, ideally, David Pastrnak would be able to retrieve. Carolina goalie Antti Raanta beat him to the puck, though, and proceeded to try to clear it down the ice.
As Pastrnak closed, he tried to get in front of Raanta to prevent the clear. He ended up awkwardly colliding with the Hurricanes goalie, though, catching Raanta with a hand to the head and some lower-body contact. While Raanta was down on the ice, one of his teammates also inadvertently made contact with Raanta’s head as he skated past.
Raanta, who stopped 35 of 36 shots in Game 1, left the game and did not return. Rookie Pyotr Kochetkov took over and stopped 30 of the 32 shots he faced in a 5-2 Carolina win.
Pastrnak was initially assessed a five-minute major, but it got reduced to a two-minute minor upon review.
Raanta was bleeding from his mouth area, but it’s unclear if that’s what kept him out or if there was something else in addition to that. Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said Raanta was not checked for a concussion.
Brind’Amour also had more to say. When asked about Svechnikov’s hit on Lindholm, he quickly pivoted to Pastrnak’s collision with Raanta.
“You never want to see guys get hurt. I don’t like seeing our goalie get taken out either,” he said. “But one was legal, one’s not, if you really want to break it down.”
A reporter then asked Brind’Amour if he thought the Bruins were intentionally targeting his goalies, as there was also an incident later in the game where Brad Marchand and Kochetkov exchanged slashes in a brief battle initiated by Marchand.
“What do you think? It can’t get any more obvious,” Brind’Amour said.
Perhaps this is just a case of Brind’Amour trying to work the officials ahead of Game 3, but it’s a pretty surprising comment. It seemed fairly obvious that Pastrnak was trying to make a play on the puck, and even made an effort to avoid Raanta, but just wasn’t able to get completely out of the way.
Pastrnak is not a dirty player and has virtually no history of cheap-shotting anyone. Plus, the Bruins were on the power play at the time, so that would’ve been a really odd time for him to start.
“I think the Raanta thing… it’s David Pastrnak. We’re on the power play,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said. “He’s trying to chase down the puck. Do you think his intention is to [run him]? That’s why they changed it from a five to a two. His foot caught his pad. He’s trying to block the clear, but get out of the way. I don’t think there’s any intent there at all. That was a freak play.”
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