The big news from the start of Monday's Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final was the absence of Marian Hossa, one of the Chicago Blackhawks’ most productive players, who was listed as an unexpected scratch minutes before the puck dropped in Boston.
According to the Blackhawks’ official Twitter account, Hossa’s unspecified injury apparently happened during warm-ups:
But Hossa was hardly the only star in the game to do some damage during his pregame skate. In fact, Bruins defenseman and captain Zdeno Chara took a spill that could have put both his status and the status of Boston left winger Milan Lucic in danger.
Here’s the clip of Chara slipping and sliding into Lucic from CBC’s coverage of the game:
And a different angle of the collision from NBCSN’s broadcast:
In case you missed Chara and Lucic's collision. Sweet sight for #Sabres fans https://t.co/Fok4BE4osW
— Follow Buffalo (@Follow_Buffalo) June 18, 2013
Chara left the ice immediately after the collision, and reportedly needed to receive stitches in the back of his head.
The above tweet, incidentally, would lead to this awesome reply from Oilers left winger Taylor Hall, who, recall, took this pregame spill in 2012:
I disagree “ @FriedgeHNIC: Healy says Chara needed stitches in back of head after pre-game collision with Lucic. Most dangerous warmup ever.”
— Taylor Hall (@hallsy04) June 18, 2013
Ultimately, both Chara and Lucic were on the ice in time for the start of the game. But that didn’t stop the Twitterverse from making a few jokes at their expense, though — the best of which may have come, coincidentally, from a Hossa parody account that apparently didn’t yet know about its namesake’s injury:
Chara & Lucic pic.twitter.com/inHPBQw6lX
— MarianHossaSay (@MarianHossaSay) June 18, 2013
