Zdeno Chara Pulls Out His Goon Card On Cedric Paquette

While the Tampa Bay Lightning may have dropped their second game in a row last night in their 4-3 loss to the Boston Bruins, it isn’t the lack of two points that everyone seems to be talking about this morning.

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If you watched the game, or even read our recap of the festivities last night, then you know that all hell broke loose on more than one occasion during the game.

The one moment, which eventually turned into two by the end of the game (we’ll get to that a little later,) that seems to stick out above the rest is the incident (and I use that term lightly) that occurred between Tampa Bay Lightning center Cedric Paquette and Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara.

I will be the first one to admit to you that I have never been a fan of Zdeno Chara, so there is a good possibility that I may be just a little bit biased here. The good news is, you don’t need my opinion on the matter to see for yourself; Chara makes my case for me in the video.

It all went down at about the sixteen minute mark in the third period when Zdeno Chara decided it would be a good idea to send Matt Carle crashing into the boards just behind the Lightning net. Cedric Paquette, who is never one to sit idly by while someone takes a run at one of his guys, steps up to the plate.

Cedric Paquette gives Chara a tap and asks him what’s going on. Chara responds by pulling out his goon card from the deck and shoving Paquette. As you can imagine, Paquette wasn’t too pleased with this and responded with a slightly harder shove of his own.

Unfortunately, things got way out of hand when Chara decided that it was an appropriate moment to slam the butt of his stick into Paquette’s throat sending him tumbling to the ice. Paquette was slow to get up, and when he did he was quickly ushered off to the Lightning locker room to be examined by the Lightning’s Head Athletic Trainer Tom Mulligan.

Thankfully, Paquette would eventually make his way back to the ice for the remainder of the game, but we can imagine that his mouth, and more than likely his head, didn’t feel too great at the moment.

So…let’s fast forward a little bit to the end of the game. The Lightning have already pulled goaltender Ben Bishop so they could get another skater on the ice and make a run at sending the game into overtime. In the background, just away from the play, you can see Chara instigating Paquette once again.

Chara is cross checking Paquette from behind over and over again right in front of the Bruins’ net. Finally, with about five seconds left in the game, Paquette has had enough and decides to retaliate on Chara. Once again, Chara decides to go for the head.

Ok, so now you have the facts. Now, here is my opinion on the matter.

First of all, how absolutely classless can one player be? I am all about a good fight between two players as they duke it out on even ground; however, not only does Chara have over a foot in height and reach on Paquette, but Chara resorts to using his stick to do his dirty work for him? Come on, now.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, while Paquette is on the ground in pain, Bruins left wing Milan Lucic decides to take a little trip over to Paquette and proceed to run his mouth about the incident. Because Paquette needed to be reminded that Chara just took a cheap shot at him, right?

In the first incident, Chara was called to the Box for two minutes for Boarding Matt Carle and a total of four minutes for Roughing Cedric Paquette. On the other side of the ice, Paquette was sent off for two minutes for Roughing.

In the second incident, both players were sent off for a total of four minutes apiece for Roughing against one another while left wing Brad Marchand took a seat for a ten minute Game Misconduct penalty. I don’t know about you, but I kind of feel like the Misconduct should have come after the first incident, but hey…who am I?

Furthermore, why was Chara not called for the incessant Cross Checks? Granted, it more than likely would not have had an impact on the outcome of the game, but at the end of the day, rules are rules for a reason.

My biggest concern here is, what kind of an example does this set for the Bruins organization? When your captain takes liberties on players half his size and simply shrugs it off as if he did nothing wrong, that sends a message that this kind of play is acceptable in the league.

At the same time, what in the world is wrong with the fans at the TD Garden last night? A player is on the ground, potentially injured by a cheap shot from your captain, and you chant the words “bull****” from the rafters? I mean, seriously…what is that?

Can you imagine the outrage, the pure, unadulterated hatred that the Lightning would get if someone like Steven Stamkos was to pull some sort of crap like that on another player from an opposing team? It would be like listening to Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby after one of his infamous dives.

Now, don’t get me wrong…in no way, shape, or form am I blaming any of these penalties for last night’s loss to the Bruins. While I will assert that they did not help in any way, the loss is much more attributed to the lack of offensive pressure and a defensive breakdown; but that is another story for another day.

The Lightning will face down their Atlantic Division rival Bruins three more times this season; one of which being the final game of the regular season. If the referees are going to allow this kind of play to continue, let alone players like Chara endorse it, then the Lightning are going to have to search for other options.

Whether this means adding a little more grit to their play or simply hitting them with the same amount of pressure they slap on us makes no difference just as long as the job gets done.

Now that you have had an opportunity to see for yourselves, what are your thoughts on Zdeno Chara’s cheap shots on Cedric Paquette? Do you think Chara was penalized correctly? What do you think needs to be done to prevent this from happening in the future? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Next: Bolts By The Bay Round Table: Power Play Edition

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