While the Bruins continue to await news of any possible discipline for Matt Cooke’s cheap shot on Marc Savard, Boston has learned it has another key injury to deal with.

Captain Zdeno Chara will also miss tonight’s game in Toronto with a lower-body injury. Coach Claude Julien termed the injury, suffered Sunday against Pittsburgh, as a day-to-day issue and hopes to have Chara back for Thursday’s game at Philadelphia. Call-up Jeff Penner will play his first NHL game in Chara’s place tonight.

Savard will be out a lot longer, perhaps for the rest of the season with the concussion he suffered from Cooke’s hit. Darren Dreger of TSN reported from the GM meetings in Florida that Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli said that Savard could be done for the year. Julien was less specific, but equally discouraging, when asked for an update on Savard’s condition during his pre-game media briefing this morning in Toronto.

“The only update I’ve had is that today he is definitely not feeling better,” said Julien. “It’s been a little hard on him, so it’s obviously a pretty serious concussion.”

The question remains how serious the league will take it. The news on that front is also discouraging. NHL senior vice president Colin Campbell, the man in charge of making decisions on supplemental discipline, discussed the hit yesterday on The FAN 590-AM in Toronto. He revealed that he didn’t believe the hit was made with Cooke’s elbow and compared it to the hit Philadelphia’s Mike Richards put on Florida’s David Booth earlier this year. Booth missed 45 games with a concussion; Richards was not suspended.

“We’re talking about a shoulder hit, a legal hit by definition of the rulebook, that causes a concussion,” said Campbell. “That’s our issue. That’s Booth-Richards. That’s the Cooke hit on Savard.”

When the host pressed Campbell on the Cooke hit really not being an elbow, Campbell replied, “No, not at all. We just watched it for about an hour and a half, eight of us.”

Exactly what part of Cooke’s arm connected with Savard’s head is hard to judge from the replays available. But it is clear that the contact was below the shoulder. Cooke did not extend his elbow on the play, but it appears that it is the top of the elbow or the biceps area just above the elbow that hits Savard. Even slightly above the elbow would still be protected by a hard plastic elbow pad, which no doubt contributed to the severity of the injury.

Regardless, the issue shouldn’t be simply whether it was an elbow or not, but whether there was an attempt to injure and a deliberate shot to the head. Cooke has already been suspended twice for such head shots, and there is still some hope that some measure of justice will be served for this latest cheap shot.

“It’s a shoulder,” insisted Campbell, “but we have to look at other aspects yet.”

Also of note, Cooke’s past history of cheap shots won’t necessarily affect Campbell’s view of this latest transgression. Columbus GM Scott Howson revealed on NHL Live this afternoon that repeat offender status cannot be used to determine if an offense is worthy of a suspension. It can only be considered in deciding the length of a suspension if the offense is deemed worthy of punishment.

What’s that all mean? It’s probably all or nothing for Cooke. He’ll either be let off scot free for adding another notch to his gun belt, or he’ll be facing a very long unpaid vacation for his third strike.

Tags: Chara, Cooke, Savard

posted: Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 1:23 pm / Bruins News /
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