McAvoy shaken up after a big hit in his first game back from concussion.

The Boston Bruins got one hell of a scare on Saturday night.

The Bruins were facing a tough challenge when they took on the Toronto Maple Leafs earlier this evening, a very important division game that they desperately needed to win. Coming into the game the Bruins found themselves in the bottom half of the Atlantic division and with the Maple Leafs being one of the teams ahead of them in the standings this game carried a lot of implications for a game so early in the season. Not to mention both of these squads have developed a very strong rivalry since their 1st round match in the Stanley Cup playoffs took them all the way to a final and deciding game 7.

Thankfully for the Bruins in spite of being without injured forward Jake DeBrusk on the evening they did a pretty good job of handling the Maple Leafs who came out looking a little flat footed on Saturday night. The Bruins largely dominated the contest, at least on the scoreboard, and would eventually take the game by a score of 6 - 2 and it was one that veteran forward Brad Marchand said the team hoped to build on moving forward, but it was almost a catastrophic night in spite of the big win for the Bruins. 

That's because late in the game's third period young star defenseman Charlie McAvoy was shaken up after a huge hit from Maple Leafs forward Zach Hyman. The Leafs were already down 4 goals at that point and although the hit from Hyman was a solid body check, one that occurred dangerously close to the end boards and seemed to come too late after the pass, it seemed to me like he may have added a little extra pepper to the hit due to the fact that his team was getting blown out on the evening. 

The result was McAvoy falling awkwardly on his back with his head seeming to take some of the impact, and when he was slow to get up I'm sure you could have heard a pin drop across the entire city of Boston. McAvoy was playing in his first game back after a long absence due to a concussion he suffered earlier in the season and the thought of losing him to another injury had to be a major disappointment. Thankfully McAvoy, although he did leave the game, would come back to the bench which likely means that he cleared the NHL's concussion protocol. 

The Bruins did come to his defense however, but to his credit Hyman answered the bell and frankly dominated the fight.

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