Boston Bruins forward Zac Rinaldo had a fight with Matt Hendricks of the Edmonton Oilers on Dec. 14, after Rinaldo gave Jordan Eberle a strong (clean) check earlier in the game.

Rinaldo went the box, and then finished the game. But then he was placed on injured reserve by the Bruins with an upper-body injury. Conventional wisdom was that he suffered the injury tumbling to the ice in the tussle with Hendricks.

However, Rinaldo said Monday that the real blame falls onto … the linesman.

From DJ Bean of WEEI:

“It was after the fight against Hendricks,” Rinaldo said. “The ref jumped on me as I was coming up and he put me down a little too rough, to be honest. That was that.”

Rinaldo was matter-of-fact about the ordeal, but clearly wasn’t happy with the result.

“It’s unfortunate,” he said. “It was after the fight, too, so there was no need to use that much force like the ref did. I don’t know. You can’t really give the ref [guff].”

Well, no, you really can't. Or at least you shouldn't. But I guess he did.

Rinaldo continues:

Added Rinaldo: “When the refs use their force after you just fought for 30 seconds, a minute, it’s the last thing you want to deal with, is a ref using all his strength and all of his — I don’t know what you want to call it — just to stop you from doing anything.”

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with pointing out that linesman David Brisebois caused the injury, or even that he could have done something to avoid that injury. They really need to keep the officials on their toes. After what happened to Yak, we need to make sure the leading cause of injury among NHL players remains irresponsible actions by their peers and not accidental incidents with linesmen.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.



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