We will hopefully find out today or tomorrow on whether Marc Savard’s
season is in jeopardy after suffering a concussion on Sunday, but the
news isn’t looking good. From the Boston Globe’s Fluto Shinzawa:
“The only update I’ve had is that today, he’s definitely
not feeling better,” coach Claude Julien said yesterday afternoon.
“It’s been a little hard on him. So obviously it’s a pretty serious
concussion.”Savard’s symptoms include headaches, fatigue, and
discomfort in his back and neck. The Bruins are expecting their medical
team, including Dr. Robert Cantu, the concussion specialist who treated
Patrice Bergeron’s Grade 3 concussion in 2007-08, to provide a clearer
picture later this week.
I’m guessing that Savard’s concussion is actually sitting right on
the line between Grade 2 and 3. Three days after the hit and he’s still
near-incapacitated at home; logic says that with the end of the season
just weeks away it’s going to be very tough for him to return in time.
Teams and the NHL do not want to rush players back on the ice when he
has a severe head injury, and generally it could take months until
Savard is 100%; anything less and the team is taking too much of a
chance with reinjury.
One interesting part of the play was seeing Patrice Bergeron giving
Matt Cooke an earful as Savard was tended to by medical personnel.
“I was just telling him it was a bad hit,” Bergeron said. “I didn’t
need to tell him that. But I felt he needed to know that. Without seeing
the replay, you know it was a bad hit.”“It’s tough, losing one of our best players on the team,” Bergeron
said. “It’s tough to take.“But right now, it’s about his health more than anything else. Now we
need to regroup. It’s not just one guy. Everybody has to bring a little
bit more to the table in order to win.”
I’m guessing he wasn’t telling him in a very nice way.