Buffalo Sabres‘ goaltender Ryan Miller is now out of the Sabres lineup indefinitely with a concussion after a he took a huge hit from Bruins‘ forward Milan Lucic. The two teams played each other on Saturday, where the Bruins went on to win 6-2. Lucic only received a 2 minute minor penalty for charging though he is likely to receive further discipline. He is set to have a meeting with the NHL’s Senior VP of Player Safety, Brendan Shanahan at 1pm on Monday.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TERA-GY2K1o[/youtube]
Perhaps the most surprising part of the incident was that none of the other five Sabres players on the ice went to beat the $h*& out of Lucic the way you would expect after a massively illegal hit like that one. The commentators during the game seem to think Miller’s teammates did a decent job of retaliating, but to me it looked like a bunch of softies trying to make it look like they were actually doing something when they really weren’t. If I was a Sabres’ player on the ice at that time, I would have made absolutely sure that Lucic wasn’t leaving the ice unless he was being carried off on a stretcher. I mean, your best player and former Vezina Trophy winning goaltender was just layed out to the point of concussion and you are going to throw a push and a shove here and there? Is that the best you’ve got? This is hockey, not an altercation during your basket weaving class. Even after they failed to properly stand up for their teammate in the moment, they could have at least tried to finish the game with a little bit of feistiness, but instead, they completely fell apart.
The five players on the ice were Thomas Vanek, Jason Pominville, Paul Gaustad, Tyler Myers and Andrej Sekera and nearly every single one of them were interviewed about their reasons for the lack of retaliation.”I can do more. I’m embarrassed that we didn’t respond the way we should have. It falls on myself. I look at myself first, and I wasn’t good enough,” said Gaustad on Sunday morning. All the players pretty much had the same thing to say about it, they were disappointed and should have handled it differently. Ryan Miller stuck around after the game specifically to speak to the media and express his anger about the situation. He didn’t hesitate to voice his opinion about Lucic and his “gutless” play.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRO_zNUdfAk[/youtube]
Somebody is NOT a happy camper. Details about Lucic’s hearing with Shanahan to follow.
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