Henrik Lundqvist was assaulted in front of 15,000 partisan fans in Dallas on Thursday night.
All The King's horses and all The Kings men stood idly by and watched in contentment as their leader struggled to get his bearings after being chicken winged by Dallas Stars agitator Cody Eakin. The ultra aggressive and dangerous Eakin was tossed from the game after destroying Henrik Lundqvist with an egregious, disgusting elbow.
Lundqvist went immediately to the quiet room and later returned to the game.
Where was the retaliation by the Rangers? Where was the show of forceful unity in defense of their veteran leader?!
Lundqvist was scratched from the past four games as Antti Raanta was given the net by Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault. Admittedly, Lundqvist had lost his technique and was giving up too many goals for his head coach's liking.
I vividly recall the Milan Lucic hit on Ryan Miller from back in the day. It was an act of treason by those Sabres players who deserted their posts and watched their leader get obliterated by the Boston bully. On that ill fated night, not one Sabres player on his he ice came to the defense of Miller. The lack of retaliation had a negative impact on the Buffalo team psyche for months after the Lucic incident.
In my opinion, the Eakin freight training of Lundqvist was worse than the Lucic-Miller incident because of the violent impact and conspicuous lack of response by any of the five Rangers on the ice. It can be argued that Lucic accidentally wiped out Miller. Eakin cannot say the same thing. Eakin hammered Hank with emphasis and there was no accident about it.
Eakin is a 5'11" 190 lb. player. He's not the hulking fighter that Lucic is. Eakin greased The King and not one Ranger made an attempt to get to Eakin to hold him accountable for his cowardly act. 99.9% of NHL players past and present fear Lucic. Eakin? Seriously?! The guy should have been splattered like a sand fly on the windshield of life.
Mark my words. The lack of response to the Eakin hit is going to create resentment in the Rangers room among the players. Lundqvist now knows who his friends are. The Eakin hit is going to resonate in the Rangers room. You wait and see.
The last thing the first place team in the Eastern Conference needs right now is a team leader like Lundqvist demanding answers from teammates young and old as to why they left him in sniper fire without any backup or cover. The only person in the building who had Lundqvist's back was the concussion spotter who sent The King to the quiet room ASAP for observation.
As for Eakins, I'd slap him with a 20 game suspension for being an numb skull. There was nothing accidental about the Eakin hit on Lundqvist.
The King got the last laugh on Eakin.
The veteran tender blocked out all outside noise and anger in guiding his team to a much needed victory.
Rangers 2 Stars 0
What better way to to flip the bird to Eakin and his lame teammates who failed to come to his defense?