Recchi down, sore after Bruins eliminated

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Mark Recchi was sore all over — he had battled kidney stones earlier in the week and also has a broken rib — and it hurt a whole lot more because he and his Boston Bruins had just been eliminated from the NHL playoffs.
“I’m sore right now . . . definitely,” said Recchi late Thursday night, less than two hours after the Bruins had been beaten 3-2 in overtime by the visiting Carolina Hurricanes in Game 7 of an NHL Eastern Conference semifinal.
“I’m pretty down right now,” the 41-year-old Kamloops native, who is a co-owner of the WHL’s Blazers, added. “It’s pretty disappointing when you think you have a pretty good chance of making a good run.”
Recchi signed a one-year contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning last summer and was traded to the Bruins at the NHL’s March 4 trade deadline. The Bruins finished atop the Eastern Conference and were favoured to beat No. 6 Carolina.
The run ended when Carolina grinder Scott Walker scored his first NHL playoff goal at 18:46 of the first overtime period. What made it hurt even worse was that most, if not all, of the Bruins felt Walker shouldn’t have been playing. They are of the opinion that Walker should have been suspended after he punched Boston defenceman Aaron Ward in the left eye with 2:47 left in the Bruins’ 4-0 victory in Game 5 in Raleigh. Instead, the NHL chose to fine Walker $2,500.
“That was tough,” Recchi said of Walker getting the winner. “Most people didn’t think he should be playing. But it is what it is now . . . unfortunately.
“It was a tough one . . . it was a tough way to lose.”
Recchi played in Game 7 despite having been hospitalized Wednesday with kidney stones.
“It got stuck on me and no matter what it wasn’t going to go through into my bladder,” said Recchi, who went to hospital early in the day and underwent a surgical procedure at around 5 p.m. He was back in his hotel room about three hours later.
He said there wasn’t much doubt that he would play in Game 7. In fact, he said, he felt a whole lot worse during Game 6 — he had a goal and an assist in Boston’s 4-2 victory.
What hurt even more is that Recchi doesn’t feel the Bruins played very well last night.
“As a team, we didn’t,” he said, “and that is really uncharacteristic. We played like we did the first three or four games . . . but we turned it around.
“We struggled the first four games . . . we just didn’t play well. In Games 5 and 6 we played really well; we played the way we’re capable of playing.
“Tonight, we were back to what we did, turning the puck over, losing battles . . . I think we got stronger as the game went on but early we just couldn’t get it going.
“And our power play wasn’t good and that really hurt us.”
Recchi, who has won two Stanley Cups in his career, with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and Carolina in 2006, will take a lot of time between now and July 1, when free agency opens, to decide whether he will play again. The Bruins will hold their exit meetings on Monday so he will stay in Boston until then.
“I’m just gonna see how it goes from there,” said Recchi, whose family is in Tampa Bay through the end of the school year.
Late last night, though, it was a matter of getting some rest. Lots of rest.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com