Krug’s monster hit jolts some life into Cup final
There was something in the way that Boston’s Torey Krug laid out St. Louis’ Robert Thomas in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final that caused a visceral reaction in nearly every person who witnessed it.
And for once, the reaction wasn’t outrage. Instead, it was pure enjoyment.
How could you not enjoy watching a helmetless Krug sprint the length of the ice and launch himself at a player with a clean, hard bodycheck? If you don’t like that, you might as well jump on the Toronto Raptors bandwagon.
Everything about that hit was GIF-worthy. Everything about it was what we love about playoff hockey. The kind of rock ’em, sock ’em, old-school play that Don Cherry built a brand around.
There was the fact that Krug was going a million miles an hour. That he was missing his helmet, causing his long locks of hair — what Bruins teammate Brad Marchand referred to as “sexy flow” — to wave in the wind as he flew in anger from one end of the rink to the other. And to top it off, there was the simple fact the person delivering the hit was all of five foot nine in height.
All those elements — along with the fact it occurred near the end of a 4-2 win for the Bruins — combined for a moment that Bostonians were jokingly calling the new Flying Orr. It was straight out of the ’70s. It was a hit that we just don’t see anymore.
Heck, we rarely see any hits at all these days.
When we do, we’re rewinding and freeze-framing the video to see whether there was contact to the head, whether the player’s feet left the ground, or in the case of Krug on Thomas, if a penalty should have been called for charging.
“Yeah, they’re trying to make it flag hockey out there, so it’s not often you see that,” said Marchand.
“But it’s fun when you do.” It was fun, but was it illegal? According to Rule 42.1 in the NHL rule book, “Charging shall mean the actions of a player, who as a result of distance travelled, shall violently check an opponent in any manner.”
So, technically, Krug’s hit could have resulted in a minor penalty. Had Thomas been injured on the play (he wasn’t), it might have even warranted a suspension.
Personally, I’m glad no penalty was called on the play. We need more hits like this, especially in a flavourless post-season that at times has lacked physicality, emotion or any kind of hatred.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s plenty of hate to go around. But it’s mostly been directed at the officials, who have unfortunately stolen headlines for the many missed calls that have created a black mark.
As for the actual games, credit Krug for injecting some much-needed life into a final that has the potential to get bloody.
That’s the one area where hockey has the advantage over the NBA at this time of year. The physicality ramps up in the NHL once the regular season ends. Or, at least, it’s supposed to be that way.
While the first round featured Caps superstar Alex Ovechkin knocking out Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov with a devastating punch, and suspensions to Nazem Kadri, Joe Thornton and Nikita Kucherov for crossing the line, the temperature has cooled off in the following rounds.
Now that the Stanley Cup is up for grabs, the stakes have risen again. And with them, so too have the physicality and the bad blood.
Krug wasn’t necessarily looking to injure Thomas on the play. But he was trying to send a message.
Seconds earlier, he had become entangled with Blues forward David Perron (“I don’t know what kind of Twister game they were playing,” said David Backes).
Krug was shoved, punched and had his helmet ripped off. It’s something the diminutive defenceman has had to put up with at various stages of his career. This time, he wasn’t going to play the victim.
After untangling themselves, Perron skated up the ice. Krug immediately followed. But when Perron went to the Blues’ bench to change, an incensed Krug then looked for the nearest St. Louis player to take out his anger.
He found it in Thomas, who never really saw Krug coming until it was too late.
“Obviously, I wasn’t going to do anything stupid and take a penalty and put our team in any sort of jeopardy,” he said.
This is where the Bruins excel. This is where they are at their best, where they can knock a team off its game.
They want to take this series into the trenches. They want skilled players, like Thomas and Jaden Schwartz, to constantly be looking over their shoulders, and for bigger bodies like Joel Edmondson and Oskar Sundqvist to get into penalty trouble over seeking retribution. After all, Boston has the No. 1-ranked power play in the playoffs.
It’s not just Marchand who can be a pest on this team. Everyone plays with bite. Though it’s noteworthy that Krug has apparently been wearing a T-shirt belonging to Marchand’s underneath his equipment during these playoffs. In Game 1, it fit perfectly.
“Ha, little Bad Bruin,” Marchand said of Krug. “But yeah it’s fun to see plays like that. Those are the ones that, when you see highlight videos of playoff time, you get clips like that.”
Let’s hope there are more of them.
Ha, little Bad Bruin. But yeah it’s fun to see plays like that. Those are the ones that, when you see highlight videos of playoff time, you get clips like that.