Thursday, June 6, 2013
- Bruins forward Gregory Campbell will miss the rest of the Stanley Cup playoffs after breaking his right fibula in Wednesday night's victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.
Campbell suffered the injury when he blocked a slap shot from Evgeni Malkin with his right leg during a Pittsburgh power play in the second period of the 2-1 double-overtime victory at TD Garden.
After blocking the shot, Campbell remained on the ice for more than a minute in obvious pain and helped the Bruins kill off the penalty.
"The guy had a [shooting] lane and he sacrificed his body and it was a great thing," Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask said after the game. "It's a bad thing he got hurt. He blocks a lot of shots and he took one for the team there and we really wanted to win this for him."
Coach Claude Julien had similar praise for Campbell.
"For what he went through, he showed a lot of guts to stay out there and to still try and play," Julien said. "Obviously it was a pretty serious injury, so that's just the kind of player he is, and it doesn't surprise me, it doesn't surprise his teammates, but certainly it shows the character of that player, and that's why we appreciate having him on our team."
"It was a huge play by him," forward Patrice Bergeron said. "Again, we're talking about details, we're talking about little things that go a long way, and that block was super. That's the way he is. He sacrifices the body always for the team, for the better of the team. Obviously we tried to rally behind that and do it for him because he's a big part of our team on and off the ice. It was great, but at the same time we -- it was a tough game, we've got to make sure we're ready for Game 4."
Added teammate Shawn Thornton on Thursday: "It's a thankless job and I don't know how many people have broken a leg, but it's not easy to stand on, let alone skate around on it. It takes a lot of heart to skate off on your own and he even tried to block another one after that. So we're blessed to have knowledgeable fans and that's a situation where they let it be known how they felt."
"I think our team wants to do it for all the right reasons, and that's one of them," Julien said Thursday. "When you see a guy go down like that and the way he went down and what he did -- what he's done for the team and what he did last night to block that shot -- the guys are going to want to rally around that. It's also got to be more than that, but he's certainly part of that equation."
