Anaheim Ducks Who might the Ducks take first in 2011?

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1 SPORT-SCAN Anaheim Ducks Who might the Ducks take first in 2011? Boston Bruins Hockey s black eye Double whammy Another heads-up for the league Teammates defend Rome Going in for the kill Bruins must keep playing with fire Cheap shots need to go Bruins must get mind on repeating effort Jacket hangs as Nathan Horton honor Impact line bursts fourth for Bruins Canucks rally round Rome Nathan Horton s Cup dream takes a hit Throwing their weight around Rome suspended for Finals; Horton out with concussion Buffalo Sabres Make Duds Sabres' first big signing Carolina Hurricanes Canes' Brind'Amour expected to join coaching staff Hurricanes make some moves behind the bench Canes hire Brind'Amour Chicago Blackhawks Tribune photos provide clue in case of missing Blackhawks Stanley Cup puck Kane eventually got championship puck Sources: Cheveldayoff accepts Winnipeg GM job Columbus Blue Jackets Blue Jackets: Scouting bosses getting pink slips Blue Jackets fire two longtime, high-level scouts Detroit Red Wings Red Wings' Todd Bertuzzi (concussion) making progress, working out again Dave Lewis, Rod Brind'Amour will be Hurricanes assistants Ex-Wings coach Lewis, former Spartan Brind'Amour join Hurricanes' staff Former Red Wings coach Dave Lewis hired as an assistant with Carolina Hurricanes Florida Panthers Former Panther Nathan Horton has concussion, out of Stanley Cup Final Minnesota Wild Former Wild coach Todd Richards is a wanted man Coaching search one of many tasks facing Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher Montreal Canadiens Canadiens coach Jacques Martin happy with way defence is shaping up Habs defensive corps jelling with signings Nashville Predators Nashville Predators' Nick Spaling rehabs shoulder injury Predators assistant finally finds himself in head coaching conversations New Jersey Devils NHL Scouting Combine: Devils narrow No. 4 selection to 10 prospects NHL 6/8/2011 DAILY BRIEF New York Rangers Bryan Berard reaches out to former Rangers teammate Manny Malhotra after frightening eye injury Brad Richards' agent says Star has no plans to waive notrade, but source says Leafs are in play Gretzky's son drafted by Cubs; chose baseball when dad was with Rangers NHL The Cup Finals Are Leaving a Nasty Mark The Cup Finals Are Leaving a Nasty Mark Nathan Horton injury gets to head of vital issue for NHL NHL suspends Canucks' Aaron Rome four games for blindside hit on Boston Bruins forward Nathan Horton NHL's delivery of justice on hit is a day late Canucks' Roberto Luongo stuck it out in Game 3 despite score NHL's delivery of justice on hit is a day late Bruins respond to vicious hit by routing Canucks, 8-1, in Game With roughhouse play, Canucks getting a rise out of Bruins Bruins Nathan Horton out; Canucks Aaron Rome banned for 4 games Bruins bury Canucks after Nathan Horton KO d by brutal hit Bruins react to Lapierre s taunt with two of their own Horton suffers severe concussion; Rome gets four games Canucks' names would dishonor Cup NHL's delivery of justice on hit is a day late Rome hit wakes up the NHL Canucks have become NHL's most-hated team NHL suspends Rome four games for hit on Horton Cheveldayoff accepts GM position with Winnipeg's NHL franchise Winnipeg waiting on a name How will the Bruins adjust without Horton? Horton taken off on stretcher in Game Canucks fume at ruling Stanley Cup shellackings revealed The anger, the drama, the series Cox: Loss of Horton a huge hole for Bruins to fill Hit on Nathan Horton a déjà vu moment for Primeau Ottawa Senators Senators captain Alfredsson to undergo back surgery on Friday More top NHL prospects visit Sens Philadelphia Flyers Flyers acquire negotiating rights to goalie Bryzgalov Trade with Phoenix gives Flyers a chance to work out deal with Bryzgalov About Ilya Bryzgalov Flyers trade for rights to Bryzgalov Flyers near deal for top goalie FLYERS TRADE FOR BRYZGALOV'S RIGHTS Flyers acquire rights to Bryzgalov from Phoenix Phoenix Coyotes Phoenix Coyotes trade negotiating rights of Ilya Bryzgalov Pittsburgh Penguins Shero does part for concussion education Penguins sign assistants to multi-year deals Penguins sign assistant coaches to extensions Penguins retain assistant coaches

2 St Louis Blues Blues players weigh in on hit on Bruins' Horton Blues sign Hensick to extension Tampa Bay Lightning Exit interview: Lightning coach Guy Boucher said season ended with talk of "getting better" Washington Capitals Reviewing the Capitals season: Dennis Wideman Websites CBS/SportsLine / Canucks' Rome caught up in evolving game, penalties CBS/SportsLine / NHL official wants "garbage" to end CNN/Sports Illustrated / Sarah KwaksNSIDE THE NHL ESPN / Aaron Rome 'emotional' over NHL's ruling ESPN / Finally, NHL clear on a tough decision ESPN / Bet on Roberto Luongo to bounce back NBCSports.com / Nathan Horton out for the playoffs with severe concussion NBCSports.com / Blue Jackets start reshuffling front office, strive to build a championship-caliber team NBCSports.com / Krys Barch regarding Maxim Lapierre: I don t know if he has an ounce of man in him NBCSports.com / Mike Murphy consulted with Brian Burke before issuing Rome s 4-game suspension NBCSports.com / Flyers acquire negotiating rights to Ilya Bryzgalov NBCSports.com / Jim Balsillie could get an NHL team if he behaves himself NBCSports.com / Report: True North will announce Kevin Cheveldayoff as Winnipeg s new GM on Wednesday NBCSports.com / Boston s Game 3 crowd was louder than Rogers Arena in Game Sportsnet.ca / The NHL got it right suspending Aaron Rome despite unspecific methods Sportsnet.ca / Final judgment TSN.CA Bob McKenzie / MCKENZIE: NHL BREAKS NEW GROUND WITH ROME SUSPENSION USA TODAY / NHL suspension, warning a bid to clean up shenanigans USA TODAY / Rome suspended four games for hit; Horton out of Final USA TODAY / Stanley Cup Final preview: Vancouver at Boston in Game USA TODAY / Canucks forced to adjust defense again after ejection YAHOO SPORTS / Bruins hope Horton returns to award jacket SPORT-SCAN, INC

3 Anaheim Ducks Who might the Ducks take first in 2011? By ERIC STEPHENS Through the years, the Ducks have been like any other team that has had their share of hits and misses with their picks in the first round of the NHL draft. Some became serviceable players in the league (Chad Kilger, Vitaly Vishnevski, Ladislav Smid). Some have been key contributors to the Ducks or others (Oleg Tverdovsky, Ruslan Salei, Joffrey Lupul). Orange County Register: LOADED:

4 Boston Bruins Hockey s black eye By Shira Springer A quick search on the NHL s official website reveals video of brawls and big hits. The best of the best, the most bone-jarring, the bloodiest find their way into packages promoting Hits of the Year and Tough Guys. Many of the clips earn playing time on NHL arena jumbotrons as in-game entertainment. The brawls and big hits whip crowds into a screaming, glassbanging frenzy. That type of violence has long been a part of the NHL. But the hit that knocked out Bruins right wing Nathan Horton in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final produced a collective gasp Monday night at TD Garden. Following a blindside headshot from Canucks defenseman Aaron Rome, Horton lay motionless with his right arm in the air. He left the ice on a stretcher and spent the night at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was released yesterday with a severe concussion and is recuperating at home. The hit on Horton and its punishment raised questions about violence in the sport, about whether the NHL can leave some of the fights and bone-jarring hits behind. Although less violent than in the past, than in the days of the Big Bad Bruins, the NHL entertains and attracts fans as much with its fast, skilled players as with physical play that sometimes crosses the line. Rome s hit crossed that line, according to the NHL, and the season is over for both players. The league suspended Rome for four games, covering the remainder of the series. Horton will miss the remainder of the series. Mike Murphy, senior vice president of NHL operations, based the punishment on the seriousness of Horton s injury and because Rome delivered a late hit. Hockey is a violent game played by violent people, said former Bruin Derek Sanderson. If you don t like that, watch tennis. People watch for the hits. The courage of the players is what attracts people to the game and what separates hockey. Hockey is not for everybody. Without the violence, the toughness, the physicality, it would lose its edge and its mystique. Sanderson, other former and current players, agents, and league officials strenuously condemn head-hunting or any type of play that would intentionally injure an opponent, especially with the increasing awareness of the effects of concussions. But the inconsistency of punishment meted out by the NHL Canucks forward Alex Burrows bit Bruin Patrice Bergeron s finger in Game 1 but he was not suspended sends mixed messages about what crosses the line. Canucks coach Alain Vigneault didn t believe the hit deserved a four-game suspension, although former Bruin Brad Park said, It should have been 15, in part because it occurred in the Stanley Cup Final and a lengthier suspension would have sent a strong, clear message. Mixed signals might result from the NHL trying to preserve the game s intensity and mystique, all elements of its fan base and its star players. Ultimately, they re in the entertainment business, said agent Kent Hughes. Hockey is more than a sport of violence, but there s a component of it that s very physical and can lead to dangerous outcomes. Things have to be done. The league cannot afford to lose players, period. They certainly cannot afford their superstars. Having players like [Pittsburgh Penguins star] Sidney Crosby potentially compromise their careers, that s going to kill the league. And the league may be surprised to find a majority of fans on the side of tougher legislation against violent play. There will always be bloodthirsty fans, but true fans appreciate good, clean hits. I like the violence when it s clean, said Justin Aucoin of Brookline, coowner and writer of the Bruins fan blog Days of Y Orr. I like the hard hits. [Johnny] Boychuk can do a nice clean, old-school hip check. I like the fights. I like watching [Bruin] Shawn Thornton drop the gloves when it s appropriate and when sticking up for a teammate. That s part of the core and the identity of the game. But the blindside hits and the late hits need to get wiped out. And Aucoin would find Thornton, who led the Bruins with 122 penalty minutes in the regular season, in agreement. After Game 3, Thornton talked about the hit on Horton becoming the culture of the game and said it has to get out of the game. To change the culture, the players must take an active role in finding a solution. Sanderson and Park noted how today s young hockey players don t learn to hit properly, how, ironically, wearing helmets at a young age has made them more reckless in how they play and hit. The NHL wants to leave injuries behind, said agent Matt Keator. The key is for the players association and the NHL to work together and make sure there s safety in the workplace. There s a fine line between clean physical play and dirtiness and cheap shots. That s where there s education going on for players to respect each other. There s an educating that has to go on at all levels that we have to get rid of plays that put players in danger. The hits that have happened are throwing a lot of awareness out there. A frighteningly violent hit in a Stanley Cup Final that appears, at times, close to spinning out of control might be just the awareness the NHL needs to take more meaningful action. Boston Globe LOADED:

5 Boston Bruins Double whammy By Fluto Shinzawa Yesterday morning, after spending the night at Massachusetts General Hospital, Bruins right winger Nathan Horton was cleared to return to his downtown home for an indefinite period of recovery from what was diagnosed as a severe concussion. The cheer of that development, however, was offset by the declaration that Horton will miss the rest of the Stanley Cup Final. Team doctors determined that Horton s brain was jarred too hard by Vancouver defenseman Aaron Rome in the first period of Game 3 for him to continue playing on the game s biggest stage. We lost a pretty good player, said Bruins coach Claude Julien of his No. 1 right wing. We re obviously glad to know it s not as bad as you always suspect. He got out this morning and has gone back home. It s obviously a long road to recovery, but hopefully he gets better soon. The NHL acted swiftly to punish Rome for his hit, which took place at 5:07 of the first period. Following a disciplinary hearing, senior vice president of hockey operations Mike Murphy an nounced that Rome was suspended for four games, which means he is not eligible to play again in this series. Rome had been playing with Kevin Bieksa on Vancouver s shutdown defense pairing. Rome had replaced Dan Hamhuis, who was knocked out in Game 1 because of a leg injury. Keith Ballard, a healthy scratch all series, will most likely replace Rome. Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault disagreed with the league s ruling on the hit. It was a little bit late, he said. But anybody that s played this game knows you have to make a decision in a fraction of a second. He s engaged in the hit. I don t know how the league could come up with that decision. Murphy said there were two factors in the ruling. First, he concluded that Rome delivered a late hit. By Murphy s reckoning, Rome landed the hit at least a second after Horton had passed the puck to Milan Lucic. Horton never saw Rome approaching. Second, the league considered the severity of Horton s injury. After the hit, Horton held his right arm raised in a stiff, sickly manner. Medical staff wheeled Horton off the ice on a stretcher. It s common sense, said Bruins forward Chris Kelly. Knowing when someone is in a vulnerable spot comes into play. You never want to see anyone on the ice like that, regardless if it s your team or the other team. It s a part of the game that the league wants to take out. Murphy said the hit did not fall under Rule 48, otherwise known as the Marc Savard Rule, which deals with blindside hits targeting the head. Murphy deemed it a north-south play, not a blindside hit. Guys play all their lives to get to this series on both teams. They might never get back, Murphy said. I take it very seriously. I do not make light of this. I wish I wasn t sitting here. I wish Aaron was playing. I wish Nathan was playing. The wallop has left the Bruins without one of their most offensive-minded players on their most dangerous attacking threesome. In 21 postseason games, Horton has 8 goals and 9 assists for 17 points, second on the team behind linemate David Krejci (20). Horton scored series-clinching goals against Montreal in the first round and Tampa Bay in the Eastern Conference final. He averaged 16:54 of ice time per game and was on the No. 1 power-play unit. Losing a player like Horty is a big loss, said Bruins winger Shawn Thornton. He s been unbelievable for us. A lot of key goals. He s an unbelievable teammate. It s not going to be easy, but guys are going to have to step up and do more now. Everybody in the lineup. Everybody that s been playing is going to have to step up. The leading candidates to fill Horton s spot are Michael Ryder and Rich Peverley. Both wingers started Game 3 on the third line. After Horton s injury, Julien gave Ryder and Peverley shifts on the first line. If Julien wants an offense-first line, Ryder would get the call. Ryder is the closest approximation to Horton. When Ryder is on his game, he is skating, quick to play the body, strong on the puck, and quick to snap off his wrister, which might be faster and heavier than Horton s. In Game 3, Ryder scored a power-play goal and added two assists. On his first helper, Ryder took the puck off the left-side wall and made a perfect seam pass through Vancouver s penalty-killing box to Mark Recchi. Ryder recorded his second assist after he snapped a shot that Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo stopped with his blocker. Krejci went high glove on the rebound. Ryder scored the eighth and final Boston goal at 19:29 of the third. We have a lot of depth on this team, Ryder said. Last time Bergy [Patrice Bergeron] got hurt, [Tyler Seguin] came in and did a great job. It s a good thing that we have that on our team. Guys know that if somebody goes down, they can step it up. It s a big reason why we ve had so much success this year. If Julien prefers speed and a two-way presence, Peverley would skate with Krejci and Lucic. Peverley has been a utility forward who has played on all four lines through the first three games. He would give the line speed on the wing to back up the Canucks and another dependable faceoff man. Peverley has won 51.7 percent of his draws in the playoffs. A dark horse would be Seguin. The 19-year-old was a healthy scratch for Game 3. The Bruins deemed that dressing Thornton would give the fourth line the identity that was absent in Games 1 and 2. Regardless of where he plays, Seguin will be back in uniform tonight. Seguin hasn t seen many top-line minutes. But the rookie s speed and skill could round out the threesome. Also, because Julien has the last change, he could get the right matchups for Seguin. Julien has preferred matching his third line against Vancouver s third unit. But Raffi Torres, Maxim Lapierre, and Jannik Hansen play a heavy, grinding game, which doesn t suit Seguin s tools. Still up in the air as we speak, Julien said. Lot of things that will come into play. First of all, who would be the right fit for those guys? Also, who they re playing against. We re even looking at Tyler in that mix with Peverley and Ryder with his speed and skill level. But who s he going to play against? At home, you have that last change. At the same time, they can always change on the fly. We need to look at it. I might be moving guys around as the game goes along depending on what happens. It s a big loss. There was chemistry between those three. That s been lost. So somebody s got to step in and do the job. Boston Globe LOADED:

6 Boston Bruins Another heads-up for the league By Christopher L. Gasper Hockey will never be violence-free, and it shouldn t be. The high-speed collisions are part of the allure, but the line between entertaining and endangering is getting as muddled as the minds of those who have fallen prey to hits to the head that have left them unable to play, Bruins right wing Nathan Horton the latest victim. If losing the game s biggest star, Sidney Crosby, for half the season to a severe concussion wasn t a signal to the NHL s tastemakers and players that they need to make some alterations to the fabric of the game, then perhaps having a riveting and compelling Stanley Cup Final taking a back seat to another brain-rattling blow should be. All the focus of the puck-following public should rest on tonight s Game 4 between the Bruins and Canucks. We should be dissecting the Canucks power-play woes (1 for 16), assessing Roberto Luongo s psychological state, praising Tim Thomas s penurious play in net, and marveling at 43- year-old Mark Recchi s revived scoring touch. Instead, the breakfast topic from Smithers, British Columbia, to Smithfield, R.I., is the four-game suspension of Vancouver defenseman Aaron Rome for his devastating check on Horton 5:07 into Game 3. Horton, who was hospitalized by the hit, is out for the rest of the series with a severe concussion. His return to play is TBA. Nobody wins in this, said NHL senior vice president of hockey ops Mike Murphy. Everybody loses. The fans lose. We lost two good hockey players. The NHL will continue to lose players and deserved attention for its wonderful game until it addresses the problem. Horton is the third Bruins player in four seasons to suffer a severe concussion because of a dubious check, joining Marc Savard, whose playing career might be over because of post-concussion syndrome, and Patrice Bergeron. In the wake of Savard s concussion last season, the league made some headway to address head shots this season, instituting Rule 48, which prohibits lateral or blindside hits to the head. But hiding behind the notion that the Hockey Code says the hittee is equally responsible for the hit as the hitter, the league stopped short of condemning all hits to the head, thus tacitly condoning them. The most alarming part of the explanation that Murphy offered for the Rome ruling was that it was based primarily on the tardiness of the hit, not Rome leaving his feet to level an unsuspecting opponent in the head. This has nothing to do with Rule 48. This is just an interference penalty, an interference hit, said Murphy. If it was immediate after he released the puck, it would be a legal hit. We have them all the time. That s the problem. By comparison, the NFL last month made it so that players who launch and use their helmet to hit a defenseless player can be subject to ejection. But it s not just the suits in Toronto and New York that are to blame. These hits are ingrained in the hit-me-with-your-best-shot culture of the game. They fall under the category of old-time hockey, when men were men and mangled noses and missing teeth were badges of honor. Getting your bell rung was part of the gig. The problem, as Bruins coach Claude Julien pointed out, is that the game has changed. The players are bigger, faster, stronger, and wearing more armor than the Knights of the Round Table. We need to clean up this game from those kind of hits, said Julien. Somehow we got to make some changes to the rules, adapt to what it has become, and understand that the hits today are a lot harder than they were 30, 40 years ago. I m supporting the league, knowing they re trying to do the best they can. There s no easy decision. This is a contact sport. You can t take the contact out of the game. Just got to try to take those situations where it becomes extremely dangerous out of the game. The reality is you can t legislate player safety solely in a rule book. It has to be put into practice on the ice by the players. It s their responsibility to compete thoroughly, but not obliviously or destructively toward each other. Call it pucks professional courtesy. It starts with us, everyone as players, said Bergeron, who was concussed during the Bruins second-round series against Philadelphia by Claude Giroux. The league can do their job, but the players we have to do our job, too. Head shots such as the one that left Horton looking up at the TD Garden rafters can t be written off as finishing your check. I think at the end of the day as players it s our call when to hit someone if they re in a vulnerable spot, said Bruins forward Chris Kelly. Everyone wants to go out there and finish their hit, be physical, especially at this point of the year. But also you need to realize when a player is in a vulnerable spot. On both sides no one wants to see that happen. Making this situation even more tragic for all involved is that Rome was the victim of a crushing hit from a defenseless position himself during Game 3 of the Western Conference finals, when San Jose s Jamie McGinn blasted him into the glass with an elbow to the back of the head. Aaron isn t a dirty player, never has been, never will be, said Canucks coach Alain Vigneault. It was a hit that unfortunately turned bad. In this era of concussion awareness, there should be zero tolerance for head shots, no matter how unintended. The NHL shouldn t have to be hit over the head with Lord Stanley s mug to realize that. Boston Globe LOADED:

7 Boston Bruins Teammates defend Rome We ve addressed it. We ve addressed it with the teams as early as this morning. I will be speaking with both general managers and coaches before the day s over about what we are seeing, the garbage that is going on, some of the issues. Boston Globe LOADED: By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell Canucks defenseman Aaron Rome was nowhere to be found yesterday at Boston University s Case Gymnasium, but during the media availability period for the Bruins and Canucks, Rome was all anyone wanted to talk about. Canucks captain Henrik Sedin acknowledged after his team s 8-1 loss in Game 3 Monday night that the devastating hit by Rome on Nathan Horton was late, but he defended his teammate, as did the rest of the Vancouver players and coach Alain Vigneault, after the NHL suspended Rome for four games. He passes the puck, Rome steps up, it s not like it s a blindside, said Sedin. I think the guy didn t even know he was there. I thought it was a good hit. Daniel Sedin echoed his brother s sentiments. We support Rome, he said. He s a hard-working guy. He has no intention to hurt anyone out there. At the same time, you never want to see a guy leave the ice like that. Vigneault argued that some of his players have been victims of similar hits without such consequences. For example, in Game 3 against San Jose in the Western Conference final, Rome was taken out by fourth-line winger Jamie McGinn of the Sharks. McGinn received a five-minute boarding major and a game misconduct but no supplemental discipline. Well, in my opinion, it s not the right call, said Vigneault. We ve had instances just in the San Jose series and Aaron was the player, where he s facing the board and gets hit. There s no suspension there. [Ben] Eager s hit on Danny [Sedin in Game 2] in my mind, where again he s facing the board, doesn t get hurt, could have serious consequences. In my opinion, those were two suspendable offenses. Vigneault said Rome is very upset about the missed opportunity to continue playing in the Final, as well as what happened to Horton. I don t think he could talk to you right now, said the coach. He s very emotional. He s very disappointed. He s been taken out of the Stanley Cup playoffs. A couple of weeks ago, he was almost taken out of the Stanley Cup playoffs by another player in a situation that, in my mind, was far worse. I don t think right now he could tell you anything because he s way too emotional about what happened. Rome, who received the most severe suspension in the history of the Stanley Cup Final, issued a statement, saying he felt very badly about the incident. I want to express my concern for Nathan s well being and wish him a quick and full recovery, the statement said. I try to play this game honestly and with integrity. As someone who has experienced this type of injury, I am well aware of its serious nature and have no desire for another player to experience it. I will not take away from my teammates focus on the task at hand and intend to speak at an appropriate time in the future. One thing the league addressed yesterday was the tenor of the series. Game 1 featured the Alex Burrows biting incident, for which Burrows was not punished because the NHL said the video wasn t conclusive. That was followed by taunting on both sides, with the Bruins getting into the act Monday. The NHL wants both teams to clean up their acts with regard to the taunting and other nonsense that led to a parade to the penalty box in the third period of Game 3. We will deal with the issues of the series, the chippiness that is going on, said Mike Murphy, who is serving as the league s dean of discipline as Colin Campbell transitions out of the job and Brendan Shanahan transitions in. Kris King is in charge of the series.

8 Boston Bruins Going in for the kill By Fluto Shinzawa there, Julien said... The Hurricanes hired former Bruins coach Dave Lewis yesterday to serve as an assistant to Paul Maurice. Lewis coached the Bruins in TD Garden was unavailable to the teams yesterday because of Glee Live. The Canucks held an optional practice at Boston University s Walter Brown Arena. The Bruins didn t practice yesterday but handled their media obligations at the BU facility. Boston Globe LOADED: The Canucks entered the Stanley Cup Final with a flammable power play, having scored on 28.3 percent of their man-up situations through three rounds. In Game 3, though, the power play was their downfall. We gave them momentum, said Vancouver center Henrik Sedin. We kill all the momentum we get from the power plays. You re not going to score on every power play. But you need to get some for your team. If you re on the bench and you re watching them score on the power play, that s a killer. In Game 3, the Bruins were perfect on the penalty kill, turning aside Vancouver on all eight of its power plays. The Bruins limited the Canucks to 13 power-play shots. Through three games, the Bruins have allowed only one power-play goal on 16 opportunities. As the cliché goes, Tim Thomas has been Boston s best penalty killer. But he has gotten plenty of help from his teammates. In Game 3, the Bruins were aggressive on the penalty kill. They challenged the Canucks and prevented their skilled players from making plays. As a result, they scored two shorthanded goals one by Brad Marchand, the other off the stick of Daniel Paille. We were forcing turnovers, moving our feet, challenging the D, said Boston center Gregory Campbell. Every time they have a power play, we have to respect it. They have extremely good players. We did a good job last night. But it s only one game. Two shorthanded plays stood above the rest. The first was Marchand s one-man dangle through Vancouver s three best players Daniel Sedin, Ryan Kesler, and Roberto Luongo. After Marchand went upstairs on a splayed-out Luongo to complete the rush, the Bruins had grabbed a commanding 3-0 lead at 11:30 of the second period. The other was a courageous Campbell block. Early in the third, while Michael Ryder was in the box for roughing, Sami Salo wound up for one of his signature slap shots. Salo can hit it with the best of them (see his two five-on-three goals against San Jose in the Western Conference final). But Campbell thought nothing of hitting the deck and throwing himself in front of Salo s shot. Shows a lot of guts on his part against a guy that shoots the puck that hard, said coach Claude Julien. It s about sacrifice more than anything else. Our penalty kill has taken a lot of pride in these playoffs to be very, very good. And it has been. Jacket stays put As the last steward of the game jacket the gloriously garish garment awarded to the Bruin most deserving after each win it would have been Nathan Horton s call to select its next guardian. After his deciding goal in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final, Horton was given the jacket from Chris Kelly, its previous winner. After the 8-1 thumping of the Canucks, many players could have earned the jacket. There was Thomas, a save away from a shutout. Or Mark Recchi, who potted two goals. Or Shawn Thornton, who delivered some serious bang for the buck in 5:50 of ice time. But after the win, the Bruins decided it wouldn t have been proper to give away the jacket without Horton having a say. So the jacket remained in Horton s stall, where it is likely to stay for the rest of the series. It wasn t right for someone else to give it out when he had it the last time, said Ryder. We all talked about it, so it was everybody. Rough stuff expected NHL senior vice president of hockey operations Mike Murphy spoke with both teams yesterday morning regarding the chippiness of the series. However, the Bruins aren t intending to tone down their physical play, which is at the heart of their identity. The physicality of the game has to stay

9 Boston Bruins Bruins must keep playing with fire By Stephen Harris / Bruins Beat If you wish, you can narrow in on specific reasons a team can win a game as dominantly as the Bruins did in routing the Vancouver Canucks, 8-1, on a memorable Monday night at the Garden. You wouldn t be wrong to look at the magnificence of Tim Thomas, with his 40 saves and rare entry under the hits column on the stat sheet; or the B s penalty-killers, who stuffed the NHL s No. 1 power play on all eight tries and scored two shorthanded goals; or the exquisite scoring snipes by Brad Marchand, David Krejci, Michael Ryder and others. But do you want to know why that game was so different than Games 1 and 2? One word: emotion. From start to finish, the Bruins produced and fed on the emotional cauldron that was the Garden, playing with an intensity mostly absent in the first two games. Such passion, and the physical play to which it leads, has to be present for the B s to be their best. If they can re-create Monday s atmosphere tonight in Game 4, they can win again and turn this into a very interesting best-of-three. We seem to play better when we play with a little bit of emotion, and when the energy in the building is like that, said forward Shawn Thornton, whose belated return to the lineup provided a big emotional boost. But that was (Monday). Now we ve got to focus on doing it again for Game 4. Hopefully we can continue to have that energy in the building. That s on us as players to try and create it off the start. The B s also, of course, drew inspiration from Aaron Rome s deliberate and dangerous shot to the head that ended the season of both winger Nathan Horton and the Canucks defenseman, who earned a suspension. There is a suggestion afield that the NHL bears some responsibility for Rome s hit because it failed to suspend Alex Burrows for biting the finger of Patrice Bergeron. Nonsense. Consult the NHL s Rule 75.2, which calls for an unsportsmanlike conduct minor, two minutes, for any player who is guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct including, but not limited to, hair-pulling, biting, grabbing hold of a face mask, etc. If warranted, and specifically when injury results, referee may apply Rule 21 (match penalty). The bite drew a couple of drops of blood, and Bergeron had a little red mark or two on his finger the next day. Is that really an injury? So based on the rule, the two minutes Burrows got (even if it was for roughing, not unsportsmanlike conduct) was proper. So all the hoopla about a suspension was silly. However, let s not let the NHL brass off the hook here. Far from it. They are quite directly at fault for Rome s shameful cheap shot, because during these playoffs the referees have mostly stopped calling just that sort of interference tacitly saying it s legal to step up and hit a guy several steps, or a second or more, after he has dished a puck. Indeed, Vancouver s Daniel Sedin talked at media day last week about the legalization of interference: Absolutely, I can understand that. I mean they re not going to call a borderline penalty, and interference is usually a borderline penalty. I think as long as they call the hooks and holding, other than that, let the players play. That s the message sent loud and clear to Rome that he could step up and blast Horton and it was perfectly OK with the referees. Back to Bitegate for a moment: B s coach Claude Julien admonished his players (Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic) for waving their fingers in the faces of Canucks rats Burrows and Maxim Lapierre, inviting them to take a bite. They ve been told that I wouldn t accept it on our team, said Julien. It s understandable that Julien wants to let the Canucks look like the bushleague clowns that they are. But he should be delighted that Recchi and Lucic made fools of the Canucks with their gestures. It just fed the emotion, for the B s and their fans. The message tonight should be: Bring on the emotion any way possible. If you ve watched all our games this year, you ve seen that the times we ve played our best, there has been a lot of emotion in our game and our game has been physical, said forward Greg Campbell. As close as Game 1 and 2 were, we felt there were things we could do better. So (in Game 3) we wanted to show that emotion and physical play early and leave it all out there. If they can keep showing it, they can win the Stanley Cup. Boston Herald LOADED:

10 Boston Bruins Cheap shots need to go By Ron Borges Shawn Thornton is paid to deliver hard hits. Yesterday he delivered the hard truth. Less than 24 hours after losing teammate Nathan Horton for the rest of the Stanley Cup finals to a concussion resulting from a borderline cheap shot by Vancouver Canucks defenseman Aaron Rome, Thornton put the blame for Horton s loss where it most belongs. Ultimately, it s on the players to stop hurting each other, the Bruins Mr. Hurt said. I think it needs to stop. I think the league s done a good job (removing assault and battery from hockey). It s up to us to stop running each other. Thornton s point is well taken. No amount of fines or suspensions even the four-game one that drummed Rome out of this series will be enough to stop the kind of blind-side head shots that left Marc Savard in a fog a year after Matt Cooke assaulted him, Patrice Bergeron absent from hockey for a year and the Montreal Canadiens Max Pacioretty reeling from a Zdeno Chara check of questionable intent. Although he is well known as someone whose game is to pound his opponent into pumice with booming checks and occasional combinations to the beak, the kind of hit Rome delivered is not in Thornton s repertoire. Frankly, Thornton s as proud of that as he is of his more aggressive side. When asked what he might have done had he been in Rome s spot, which was to say with Horton bearing down on him several strides after having sent the puck onto the stick of Milan Lucic, Thornton s eyes flared. I wasn t in Rome s spot, Thornton snapped. Ask him. The implication was clear. Although Thornton went out of his way not to demonize Rome, when it came to the hit it was obvious he felt he wouldn t have unloaded on a defenseless opponent skating with his head down, without the puck and, according to NHL senior vice president of hockey operations Mike Murphy, a second late. Murphy insisted Rome had not violated Rule 48, the one known as the Matt Cooke Rule because it was inspired by the head-hunting cheap-shot artist s attempted decapitation of Savard. It defines illegal checks to the head as a lateral or blind-side hit to an opponent where the head is targeted and/or the principal point of contact.?.?. Murphy insisted Rome s hit was a north-south play and hence not a Rule 48 violation, yet he still handed down the biggest suspension in Cup finals history. What compounded the felony was the Canucks universal and shameless defense of Rome. It is that sort of acceptance of a debilitating level of violence that Thornton knows must change for the sport s concussion epidemic to end. In my opinion, it s not the right call, Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said. We ve had instances just in the San Jose series (the Western Conference finals), and Aaron was the player, where he s facing the boards and he gets hit, there s no suspension there (despite a concussion). We re real disappointed the player got hurt but it was a north-south play. It was a little bit late but anybody that s played this game knows you have to make a decision in a fraction of a second..?.?. I don t know how the league could come up with that decision really. (Rome) is very disappointed. He s been taken out of the Stanley Cup playoffs. A couple weeks ago, he was almost taken out of the Stanley Cup playoffs by another player in a situation that, in my mind, was far worse. Hey, Alain, how about this: Both plays stunk and need to be taken out of the game unless the NHL wants to replace its referees with Canadian Mounties. All the NHL did yesterday was stand up for a guy who got laid out. Yet even a reasonable guy like five-time NHL All-Star Tony Amonte saw the hit as borderline, suggesting Horton bore some responsibility for keeping his head up while skating. While it s true Horton should understand he s not in the Ice Capades, that didn t mean Rome needed to take him down blindly. Common sense, knowing when someone is in a vulnerable spot, comes into play, B s center Chris Kelly said. Yet B s defenseman Andrew Ference, who had been critical earlier in the year of a shot taken by teammate Daniel Paille that resulted in a four-game suspension, struggled to put Horton s loss into hockey perspective. We re allowed to be physical, Ference said. That s part of the fabric of our sport. Even though we ve taken some of those hits as a team, we understand as well as anybody that it is a very fine line. A hit like that doesn t mean the guy is a bad guy or anything. They are split-second decisions but they re split-second decisions that obviously can affect lives, as we ve seen. The best word is to understand the responsibility you have of staying on the right side of the line..?.?. There s a lot of trust you put into your opponents that you re facing. Nathan Horton s trust was misplaced. How many more times does that have to happen before the guys on the ice become people you can trust with your head and your future? Boston Herald LOADED:

11 Boston Bruins Bruins must get mind on repeating effort By Steve Conroy The Bruins have had their moment, and their emotional victory in Game 3 was indeed a big one. So, now what? In the grand scheme of these Stanley Cup finals, the Bruins have not even held serve yet. And if they come out with anything less than the type of effort they gave in the second and third periods of Monday night s 8-1 pounding of the Vancouver Canucks, they could head back to British Columbia down 3-1 in the series. Throughout the regular season and especially in the playoffs, the Bruins have done a great job of turning the page on tough losses. It may be just as important for them to do the same thing on Monday s testy affair at the Garden. Routs in the finals are almost always aberrations, and the B s have to expect that Game 3 will prove to be one, too. I think you hopefully want to carry some momentum to the next game, but it was just one win, said forward Chris Kelly. We need to refocus and realize our next obstacle is Game 4. We know they re going to come out hard and we need to have our best game. The B s, of course, will also have to beat the Canucks without one of their best players and undoubtedly their most clutch scorer in the playoffs in Nathan Horton, who suffered a severe concussion at the hands of Aaron Rome. It is a big loss, one that s bigger for the Bruins than the loss of Rome to a four-game suspension is to the Canucks. Horty is a big part of our team, said winger Michael Ryder. He s been huge for us all season in the playoffs. We re definitely going to miss him. Unless coach Claude Julien goes way out of the box, rookie Tyler Seguin will be back in the lineup, and having a player as skilled as Seguin is a very good luxury. And if he has another four-point explosion in him like the one he had in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, all the better. But a 19- year-old kid cannot replace the muscle and skill that Horton has brought. If the Bruins are to succeed, they re going to need the type of nopassengers effort they had in Game 7 of the East finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Obviously Horton is a huge part of our team. That being said, we ve got to, as a team, do the job and step up, said center Patrice Bergeron. It s about not just one guy, it s about everyone making sure we re doing our job. You can t replace Horts. While this series has seen its share of shenanigans from the Alex Burrows bite, to the Maxim Lapierre finger wave, to the Rich Peverley slash of Kevin Bieksa, to the finger waves by Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic the good bet here is that Game 4 will return to hockey. It may be rough and tumble hockey, but the feeling here is that the silliness is done with. The league, in fact, has expressed its displeasure about those things to both teams. I m sure you won t see any of that, said Kelly. I m hoping it s run its course. And now, just like the Canucks need to eliminate Monday s Game 3 result from their memory, the B s need to do the same thing. I think a lot of our success has been to eliminate carryover, positively or negatively, to turn the page. In the big picture, it s game to game; small picture, period to period. It s a clean slate, said defenseman Andrew Ference. But they have a 2-1 lead. We know we have to do our job at home to stay in the series. It s important for us to just go at it. Boston Herald LOADED:

12 Boston Bruins Jacket hangs as Nathan Horton honor By Steve Buckley As Bruins star Milan Lucic spoke after his team s 8-1 dismantling of the Vancouver Canucks in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup final Monday night, it was hard not to notice he was standing in front of the dressing stall of injured teammate Nathan Horton. Nor was it hard not to notice that The Jacket a vitally important symbol in the Bruins locker room was hanging prominently in Horton s locker. As most Bruins fans know, The Jacket an old, tacky Bruins warm-up that was purchased on ebay by defenseman Andrew Ference has become a sort of team trophy, awarded after each victory to a player whose contributions in the effort merit the special honor. The last player to receive The Jacket was Horton, whose third-period goal in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals propelled the Bruins to the Stanley Cup final. Decorum being what it is, Horton s job was to bestow The Jacket to a new recipient after the Bruins next victory. But Horton was not on hand to celebrate the victory over the Canucks, having been rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital after suffering a severe concussion from a vicious, illegal hit from Vancouver defenseman Aaron Rome. The Bruins thus made a decision: The Jacket would remain in Horton s dressing stall. He wasn t there to give it out, so we decided to just keep it there, Ference said. It wasn t right to give it out to someone else. Asked who made the decision to leave The Jacket in Horton s space, Ference replied, We all talked about it. It was everybody. Added Ference: Every player who has worn it, has earned it. It s obviously something that we usually do for fun. This time, The Jacket played a more serious role in the Bruins locker room. It will remain in Horton s space, Ference said, until he s back around the room to give it to someone else. Horton will be out for the remainder of the playoffs. He s the guy who received The Jacket last and gets to pass it on, Lucic said. And since he wasn t there, we felt that he should keep it. It remains to be seen if Horton will be on hand for tonight s Game 4 to pass The Jacket on to a new recipient if the Bruins win. Coach Claude Julien said he played no role in placing The Jacket in Horton s stall. I m going to leave that to the players, the coach said. At the end of the day, it was their decision. Boston Herald LOADED:

13 Boston Bruins Impact line bursts fourth for Bruins By Dan Duggan It s no coincidence that the Bruins fourth line made its biggest impact in the team s most physical effort of the Stanley Cup finals. The Shawn Thornton-Gregory Campbell-Daniel Paille combination had been absent from losses to the Vancouver Canucks in the first two games of the series, as Thornton was a healthy scratch. That changed in Monday s Game 3, when Thornton was activated and rejoined the Merlot Line, as it is called due to the color of its practice jerseys. The line accounted for a goal and an assist (both by Paille) in the Bruins 8-1 win at the Garden. As always, the trio s greatest impact was energy and physicality. Those guys have been like that for us all year, coach Claude Julien said yesterday. I know in the playoffs it s changed a little bit. Their ice time diminished a little bit, but not (Monday) night. They stepped up and were ready to go, good team players, understanding their roles, and ready at any time. Activating Thornton provided the desired boost, as the gritty veteran dropped Vancouver villain Alex Burrows with a check on his first shift. Shortly after, Thornton had a few choice words for the Canucks bench as he skated past. Thornton s play set the tone for an aggressive night, highlighted by a combined 11 hits by the fourth line in just over 36 minutes of ice time. The way the series had gone so far in the first couple of games, with the line matchups and everything else, I thought it was important to get Shawn into our lineup, Julien said. I really commend him for the job he did (Monday). He certainly changed things a lot as far as our identity, what he brought to the table. Campbell and Paille bring most of their value on the penalty kill, which has been brilliant during this series. The Bruins actually have more shorthanded goals (two) than the Canucks have power-play scores (one) in 16 opportunities. The Bruins penalty kill has been solid all season, but no one could have predicted this type of domination against such a formidable power-play unit. Vancouver converted 28.3 percent of its power-play chances in the first three rounds of the playoffs and had the most goals in the league with a man advantage during the regular season. The Canucks went 0-for-8 on the power play in Game 3, while the Bruins managed a pair of shorthanded goals, including one by Paille. The chances came because we were forcing turnovers, we were moving our feet and challenging the D,? said Campbell, who blocked two shots, including a hard slap shot to the body from Sami Salo. Every time they have a power play, we have to respect it because it s an extremely good power play with extremely good players on there. We did a good job (Monday) night, but that s only one game. Boston Herald LOADED: