Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour does not expect rookie forward Andrei Svechnikov to play in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs first-round series on Thursday against the Washington Capitals.
Ovechkin knocked Svechnikov to the ice in a fight in the first period of Monday’s Game 3, and Svechnikov had to be helped to the locker room and missed the rest of the game.
Brind’Amour said Svechnikov was checked out at a local hospital Monday night and remained in the NHL concussion protocol Tuesday. He implied Svechnikov’s fall Monday looked worse than it turned out to be, and the 19-year-old told him he feels “great.”
Still, the coach said “I would assume” Svechnikov will miss Game 4.
Svechnikov was the No. 2 overall draft pick in 2018 and scored 20 goals for the Hurricanes, the fourth most on the team. Without him and potentially another winger, Micheal Ferland, who left Game 3 with an upper-body injury, Carolina will be in a difficult spot.
The fight drew mixed reaction on social media, and because it involved one of the league’s biggest stars and the larger stage the postseason provides, it’s beginning to stir up the debate over why hockey culture tolerates fighting at all.
“I don’t know if it’s ever been necessary,” said Brind’Amour, who played 20 seasons in the NHL. “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.”
But even if it is not eradicated, fighting is certainly in decline. Statistics from hockeyfights.com, a database tracking all fights in the NHL and other leagues around the world, show NHL players are fighting at the lowest rate of the millennium.
Only 16.72 percent of games in the 2018-19 regular season featured a fight; just two seasons ago, that rate was about 25 percent, and in 2009-10 it was 40 percent.
Brind’Amour joined the likes of Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy in speaking out against fighting after their playing careers. But Capitals coach Todd Reirden played at the NHL level, too, and perhaps represents the majority of the hockey community that isn’t bothered.
“I see it as two willing combatants, and that’s part of our sport,” Reirden said Tuesday. “One player won the fight and one player lost the fight.”
Unsurprisingly, Capitals players praised Ovechkin for taking the fight, while the Hurricanes took issue with how it played out.
“It was big for him, showing his emotion,” Braden Holtby said of Ovechkin. “I mean, he plays hard. Against a kid that kind of, you know, takes a lot of cheap shots and that kind of thing, it was, you know, playoff hockey.”
Ovechkin said he didn’t want Svechnikov to be hurt.
“First of all I hope he’s OK,” Ovechkin said. “I’m not a big fighter and he’s same way. He asked me to fight and I said let’s go, yeah.”
Video of the events leading up to the fight appeared to show Svechnikov and Ovechkin mutually agreeing to drop the gloves after Svechnikov shoved the Capitals’ captain several times. Brind’Amour was asked whether Svechnikov admitted he asked for the fight.
“There’s two versions [of the story] going around. I’ll just leave it at that,” Brind’Amour said.
If Ovechkin “winning” the fight was meant to change the momentum in a raucous PNC Arena and spur on his Capitals teammates, it had the opposite effect. The Capitals slowed down and couldn’t generate anything offensively, while the Hurricanes rallied for their fallen teammate and won 5-0, their first win of the series.
Game 4 is set for Thursday at 7, followed by Game 5 back in Washington on Saturday.
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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