Connor Murphy was taken from the ice on a stretcher in the first period of the Chicago Blackhawks game against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa on Saturday.
The defenseman was placed into concussion protocol Monday.
“‘Murph’ is a good buddy,” Blackhawks defenseman Jake McCabe said. “We’ve seen too many stretchers this year. It’s a scary thing. Definitely it’s tough to regroup so quickly after that. I’m just happy that he’s doing well and great to be able to pull a win out for him too.”
Murphy was able to return to Chicago with the Blackhawks, coach Derek King said after a 6-3 win.
King said he saw Murphy on Monday.
“It happens in the game. It’s unfortunate that it happened to him and he’ll recover,” King said. “We just have to make sure when he’s ready to come back he’s 100 percent and no harm.”
Murphy was attempting to play the puck at the right-wing boards in the offensive zone when he was hit into the glass by Senators forward Parker Kelly, who received a major penalty for boarding and a game misconduct at 2:40 of the period.
“I can’t comment on the hit, per se,” Chicago captain Jonathan Toews said. “I think whenever someone does end up on the ice like that, there’s definitely responsibility on the guy who throws our guy into the boards. I don’t know. I think we’re at the point in the league where there’s that respect level and the understanding that you don’t want to be in a situation like that. You want to play physical, you want to hit hard, but if there’s potential for something like that to happen, you’ve got to be smarter about it.”
The game was delayed about seven minutes while Murphy was attended to on the ice. After being evaluated, he remained at the arena under the supervision of the Blackhawks medical staff.
“You never want to see that,” Ottawa defenseman Thomas Chabot said. “I mean, it doesn’t matter [who it is], there’s a lot of competitive guys out there in the game and things happen. But I mean, anytime you see that, nobody likes seeing that. It’s very unfortunate. I mean, hopefully, I heard that he was still here, even after the second period, so you want to wish Murphy the best. It’s an unfortunate situation and nobody wants to see that in our game and hopefully he’s doing pretty well and he recovers really quickly.”
The Blackhawks were all on the ice as Murphy left, and then gathered in front of the bench before play resumed.
“I said, ‘Hey, listen. This stuff happens in our line of work and there’s nothing we can do about it,'” King said. “Obviously, we don’t want to see a player hurt like that, but we have to focus on the task ahead of us.”
Ottawa scored a shorthanded goal 38 seconds after play resumed and led 2-0 at the end of the first period.
“It’s hard not to be rattled,” Toews said. “For a second, your focus is taken away from the game and it’s kind of hard to regroup and care about the game when your thoughts are with your teammate, and you really don’t know if he’s OK. Obviously, it looked like a pretty serious situation when [Murphy] was being put on the stretcher, so we’re happy he’s OK.”
Murphy leads the NHL with 150 blocked shots and has scored 10 points (four goals, six assists) in 57 games this season. He missed three games from Dec. 4-7 while in NHL concussion protocol.
“It’s really tough when you see your teammate go down, especially a guy like Murphy,” Chicago defenseman Caleb Jones said. “He’s kind of a heart and soul guy. It’s tough to bounce back. I think we just needed to get our feet under us after the first, and we just came back in the second and said, ‘You know what, let’s win this one for [Murphy].'”
NHL.com independent correspondent Callum Fraser and NHL.com staff writer Tracey Myers contributed to this report
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