Canes teen in concussion protocall

[Brewin Flames]

Canes teen in concussion protocol after fight

 

play

 

 

 

 

0:14

/

1:02

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

•  

 

 

4:46 PM ET

• 
  Emily Kaplan ESPN

Carolina Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov, 19, is in the concussion protocol after being knocked out by Alex Ovechkin in a fight during Monday night's Game 3 of their first-round playoff series.

Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour made the announcement, saying he assumed that Svechnikov would miss Thursday's Game 4.

 

Svechnikov is the youngest player in the NHL playoffs. A native of Barnaul, Russia, Svechnikov has said he grew up idolizing Ovechkin, his countryman who is 14 years his senior. Svechnikov appeared to provoke Ovechkin in the first period, and the two exchanged words before dropping the gloves. Svechnikov got a few jabs in before Ovechkin dropped Svechnikov with three hard rights.

 

Svechnikov's head hit the ice on the way down. He stayed down on the ice for several minutes, then was helped off by Carolina athletic trainers. He did not return to the game.

 

It was Ovechkin's first fight since Dec. 12, 2010. He received a five-minute major penalty.

 

"First of all, I hope he's OK," Ovechkin said Monday night. "Yeah, I'm not a big fighter, and he's the same. He asked me to fight and said, 'Let's go.' I hope he's OK. You don't want to see a guy get hurt or something. And you just go a different way."

Brind'Amour said Tuesday he isn't so sure that Svechnikov asked for the fight.

 

"There's two version going around. I'll just leave it at that," he said.

 

Capitals coach Todd Reirden had a different take on the whole thing: "I see it as two willing combatants. That's part of our sport, and one player won the fight and one player lost the fight."

 

When asked Tuesday if fighting is still necessary in hockey, Brind'Amour said: "I don't know if it's ever been necessary. It's been part of the game forever. No, I don't think it's necessary. I don't think you're ever going to get it away from the game. It's tough to see, though. That's the worst part of it that you see when guys get hurt. That's always tough to see."

The Hurricanes won their first home playoff game in a decade, routing the Capitals 5-0. Washington has a 2-1 series lead.

Brind'Amour said Monday that Svechnikov had left the building before the game was over.

 

"Svech means a lot to us. Young kid. Just turned 19. He has a special bond with our group, with me too," Brind'Amour said. "When you see that, it makes you sick. I'm still sick to my stomach about it. ... It's a little bit tough, because I just heard Ovi talk about it; he said our guy challenged him. So, if that's the case, it's a little different. If you watch the video, he slashes him twice -- Ovi, whack, whack -- then Svech gets him back. I don't know if there's words exchanged, but one guy's gloves come off way first. And that's Ovi, not our guy.

 

"So, it's a little but frustrating, because he got hurt. It's his first fight. He's played 90 games. He's never fought in his life, and I'm pretty sure Ovi knew that. So, that stuff bothers me."

 

Svechnikov scored two goals and tallied one assist in the Hurricanes' first two games in this series.

 

Ovechkin won his record eighth Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy this season as the league's top goal scorer. He had one goal and two assists in the Capitals' first two games in these playoffs.

 

"I just hated seeing that. I just hated the whole part of it. Just something you never want to see," Hurricanes defenseman Dougie Hamilton said. "I just feel so bad for [Svechnikov], and hopefully he gets better soon. The game doesn't really matter when something like that happens; you just can't get it out of your head.

 

I just hope he's OK."

With Svechnikov likely out for Game 4, the Hurricanes recalled forward Patrick Brown from AHL-Charlotte on an emergency basis. Brown, who had 19 goals and 16 assists in 70 games in the minors, has one goal and one assist in 28 career NHL games.

[flyercanuck]

Looked like a bigger stronger vet taking advantage of a lot smaller younger guy. I know they were both hacking each other, and obviously Svechkikov didn't want to back down. But I can't say i respect OV for that one.

[mojo1917]

I don't think I agree with the Canes' announce crew that 8 slammed the youngster's head to the ice. 

I do think Ovechkin lost his balance when Svechkikov went to sleep from his punch and Ovechkin was suddenly haning on to dead weight. 

That's a bad result and  will be used as exhibit A for why fighting should be banned from the game. 

[brelic]

It's a really unfortunate injury for Svechnikov. Never want to see someone get hurt like that. 

 

At the same time, this is something the league accepts, and fans cheer, as part of the game.

 

Let's call it what it is - it's assault. You want to keep that in the game, fine. But let's not pretend it's a fun-time friendly affair. Really bad things happen in fights and assault. People get hurt. People get brain damage. People die. It's completely unacceptable in ANY other area of life. 

 

I think it will eventually leave the game. It's just a matter of time and shifting perspectives as the older generations die off and younger ones replace them. 

 

 

[Alexandron]

 

 

 

On 4/17/2019 at 9:30 AM, brelic said:

It's a really unfortunate injury for Svechnikov. Never want to see someone get hurt like that. 

 

At the same time, this is something the league accepts, and fans cheer, as part of the game.

 

Let's call it what it is - it's assault. You want to keep that in the game, fine. But let's not pretend it's a fun-time friendly affair. Really bad things happen in fights and assault. People get hurt. People get brain damage. People die. It's completely unacceptable in ANY other area of life. 

 

I think it will eventually leave the game. It's just a matter of time and shifting perspectives as the older generations die off and younger ones replace them. 

 

 

Agree. Never want to see that during the game.

Thanks for bringing that such a painful topic. I am still shocked/under sadness already for almost a week. And it does not matter for me now who is going to win these series Carolina or Washington. That drama has few aspects which should be discussed in a league because these playoffs will be remembered forever just for that cruel fight. Agree that fight should have never happened. And who is guilty in it we will talk next. Well known that Russia is popular for extremely brave and strong fighters. Personally, for me, the Hurricane coach is guilty that he put provoking Svechnikov against Ovechkin to block his play, but the coach was really able to prevent that incident. A huge coach mistake, who was not smart enough. Second who is guilty was the youngster Svechnikov who did not tell the coach that he is not going to follow Ovechkin during the game but someone else. And that pinching each other started right from the beginning of the 3rd game. Those few aspects are:
1.-coach should never put 2 Russians against each other because they could make a badly damage themselves, and especially if the youngster was previously idolizing the Ovechkin;
2. Svechnikov was smaller than Ovechkin and did not have a lot of NHL and playoffs experience;
3. Ovechkin had fought only 4 times in his career(never against Russians) and never lost;
4. This NHL season Andrei Svechnikov had 62 penalty minutes out of 82 games- it seems a lot for the youngster. I was following our Wild prospect Dmitry Sokolov who was playing half of the last season in OHL Barry Colts team together with Andrei Svechnikov. And Svechnikov always had plenty of penalty minutes there too.
Of course, the fight in a professional hockey will never be eliminated, especially during the playoffs time, because the level of provoking fighting tension is extremely high.
But the saddest part of the happened drama that Svechnikov did not realize well that he is fighting against a much bigger, more experienced, more aggressive player. Nothing else was clicking in his young brain that how he will put his country Russia in front of the world. Just a shame that 2 Russians had a bad fight each other to the level of concussion during the playoffs. Or maybe he wanted to be famous that way because he fought against Ovechkin during his career? When I watched  2 days after that fight we already had 1,42 million views through the internet. Regarding a concussion- yes, definitely was at least micro-concussion, but it was not a bad one because Andrei had his helmet all the time in on his head and that micro concussion mainly happened right away when Ovechkin had a quick hit into the Svechnikov's neck which stopped brain circulation for a few seconds. In that situation Ovechkin it seemed had no other way to stop him.
Anyway, it was a good lesson for youngsters(not only for Svechnikov), before starting a fight they should think well if it is necessary, especially if you are fighting against a famous player from your own country. Instead of fighting, Andrei should say to Ovechkin: "Sorry, I will try to avoid to provoke you during the game in the future, because you are my hockey idol ". 
I have feelings, that Svechnikov will never play for the Russian team in international competitions because of that hockey drama among 2 Russians happened this year.
I remember when recently during the regular season Evgenii Malkin was suspended for one game because he just pretended to hit with a stick one idiot's head (I do not remember the player's name). But what I remembered that this player was hitting badly few times to Malkin with a stick into the back and neck few seconds before the incident. And Malkin had a normal human reaction to give it back to prevent future destruction of the game as well as his body damage, which is especially typical for the Russian character and never is a matter for them a game suspension or a money charge. Probably in those cases, better to give a penalty minutes to a provoking person/player too. 
 

[Hockey-78]

On 4/17/2019 at 5:30 PM, brelic said:

I think it will eventually leave the game. It's just a matter of time and shifting perspectives as the older generations die off and younger ones replace them. 

 

 

Yeah.

 

Most of the current players aren't interested in getting dirt under their (polished) finger nails. They just want to skate up and down, send messages with their IPhones during the intermissions, play Fortnite or whatever after the games, get their millions with scoring a few goals...

 

Getting bruised in a fight?! Why bother.