Tampa Bay’s Ryan Callahan drove Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang face first into the boards. Letang, after lying prone on the ice for a few seconds, made it back to the locker room — and Callahan, though he got a five-minute boarding major, stayed in the game.
(UPDATE: Letang somehow returned to the game … while Lightning goalie Ben Bishop was stretchered off the ice with a serious leg injury.)
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This is dumb, wrong and important for two reasons.
Callahan will almost certainly be suspended for the hit — but he should’ve been ejected from Game 1 for the sheer amount of time he was staring at Letang’s numbers, and for extending his forearm into the back of his head. Since Callahan stick around, the Lightning don’t have to play with 10 forwards. They should, but they won’t.
More importantly, it takes Letang out of the equation. He might be the best player on a team with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, and he’s certainly the most important. He’s a Norris-caliber defenseman who has come to excel at nearly everything. If he’s out for a significant amount of time, the Lightning will have an obvious edge.
Pittsburgh somehow managed to beat the Capitals in the last round while Letang was suspended. They can survive one game without him. They probably can’t survive a series.
