Sedin misses game after taking hit from Hawks’ Keith
Vancouver star Daniel Sedin, who took a shot to the head from Duncan Keith and had to leave Wednesday’s game early, flew home to see a specialist while the rest of the team flew on to Dallas for its game Thursday night.
TSN reported that Keith will have a disciplinary hearing over the phone with NHL top cop Brendan Shanahan as soon as today.
Sedin’s condition was being closely guarded after Wednesday’s game, but Sedin’s brother Henrik told reporters the fact that Daniel didn’t return to the game after the first-period incident said a lot about his condition.
“He didn’t continue playing, and that’s usually when it’s bad because he likes to play hockey,” Henrik said. “I haven’t talked to him. We’ll see what happens.”
So now it’s just a matter of Keith having his hearing and the NHL rendering its verdict.
The Canucks apparently already have.
“Deliberate, principal point of contact, everything you are trying to take out of the game,” Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault said. “I expected a major, I got a minor.”
Stay tuned.
Itching to get involved:
During a big scrum in front of his net in the second period of Wednesday’s game with Vancouver, one in which Duncan Keith was the center of attention among a slew of Canucks — particularly Alex Burrows — goalie Corey Crawford admitted it was tough for him not to drop the gloves and get involved.
But in the end, reason prevailed.
“They were all over Duncs; there were two or three guys on him and the refs were pushing all of our guys away,” said Crawford, who stopped all 14 shots he faced in the third period Wednesday en route to his fifth straight victory. “That’s a little frustrating.
“You’ve got to try not getting into that stuff with that team. They like to do that. If we just stick to hockey we’re better off that way.”
The 900 club:
Marian Hossa registered his 900th career point Tuesday at Columbus courtesy of a power-play goal and an assist. That moved him into a tie with Tony Amonte for 95th on the NHL’s all-time scoring list.
Hossa added point No. 901 Wednesday when he assisted on Patrick Kane’s second-period goal.
“That’s definitely a nice number,” Hossa said of reaching 900, “but today’s another game and I try to focus on that game and move on.”
Elite company:
Patrick Kane is the third player in Blackhawks history to score 20 or more goals in each of his first five seasons in the NHL, joining Jonathan Toews and Denis Savard, and the second with 60-plus points in each of his first five (Savard).
He said it:
“It might be easy to fall into the mindset that you think it’s going to be easier because things are going well right now. We’ve got to think things are going to get tougher from here and get prepared for that.”
— Corey Crawford, on keeping the focus down the stretch.