Bruins captain Zdeno Chara was given a five-minute interference major and a game misconduct when a hit along the boards forced Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty to hit his head on the glassed area and left him motionless on the ice. After the game, the Chara spoke about the play. “Obviously, that wasn’t my intention to push him into the post,” Chara told reporters following the game. “It’s very unfortunate. In that situation, everything’s happening fast, and you’re not planning to do that. That’s not my style to hurt somebody. I always play hard, play physical, but I never try to hurt anybody. I’m hoping he’s OK.” “I think what people have to understand is Zdeno is not a dirty player,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said in his NESN postgame interview with Naoko Funayama. “He certainly never meant for that to happen. I think if anything he tried to rub him out in the boards. Unfortunately it’s the partition that did the damage. If it’s anywhere else on the ice, it might be a normal interference call at worst. Unfortunately he hit the partition. That’s something that’ we’ve happen often. I know there’s padding there and we’ve tried to rectify that as far as helping guys not get hie in that area, but it still continues to happen.”
