"When he's 100 percent we will get him back in there," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said Thursday, according to NHL.com's Kurt Dusterberg. "But until then, you can't. There's no point."
The Hurricanes hold a 3-0 series lead over the Isles, and veteran backup Curtis McElhinney owns a .957 save percentage since relieving an injured Mrazek in Game 2, providing little incentive to rush the starter back between the pipes.
"We can't rush a goalie back," Brind'Amour said. "He can't play with an injury. There's a difference with a goalie, I think. (Skaters) can kind of baby it a little, hide it. A goalie can't. He has to be 100 percent in order to feel good about making his moves and exploding."
Mrazek and McEhlinney formed an admirable platoon during the regular season, but both netminders have elevated their play in the postseason.
McElhinney, 35, became the oldest goalie to make his first playoff start in Game 3 and now has a chance to punch Carolina's ticket to the conference finals Friday.
It's fair to wonder how differently Game 4 might have gone for the Blue Jackets in a parallel universe, one in which the NHL saw fit to suspend Brad Marchand for punching an unsuspecting Columbus defenseman in the back of the head.
Granted, Tuukka Rask was brilliant, and the Jackets' only goal on 40 shots was the direct result of an egregious officiating error. But the Bruins' 4-1 win made clear that in a series where each goalie — Rask and Sergei Bobrovsky — has starred, their greatest advantage is the capability of their best forwards to take over at a moment's notice.
With Marchand let off unscathed, Boston head coach Bruce Cassidy reunited him, Patrice Bergeron, and David Pastrnak on Thursday after deploying that trio sparingly at even strength in Games 1, 2, and 3. Neither Marchand nor Bergeron had registered a point in this series alongside fill-in linemate Danton Heinen, and it didn't take them long at all to atone for that shortfall.
Kirk Irwin / Getty Images
By combining to score three goals, two of which rippled the twine behind Bobrovsky before the game was eight minutes old, Marchand, Bergeron, and Pastrnak finally mustered a sufficient response to Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, and Cam Atkinson, whose cumulative offensive production — four goals and five assists entering the night — had helped power Columbus to a 2-1 series lead.
Each of those goals developed through tidy combination play. On the first, Pastrnak buried a cross-ice pass from Charlie McAvoy from the left faceoff circle as Marchand and Bergeron occupied attention on the weak side. Marchand set up Bergeron for his first power-play tally; Bergeron's second came courtesy of a rebound Pastrnak created with a lethal one-timer.
Patrice Bergeron with a big PP goal for the @NHLBruins. 🚨
Keep your stars together and let them go to work. It's a simple formula that can work wonders, especially when the goalie behind them is operating on a higher plane. Eleven of the 40 shots Rask faced were high-danger, and he turned each and every one of them aside, upping his save percentage in the series to a sparkling .942 (and .952 at even-strength).
In one way, Game 4 lent credence to the thought that Rask's improved play in the postseason shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Though his .912 save percentage in the regular season was a career low, he was a .925 netminder at even strength, a number worthy of a great deal more respect.
The area where Rask faltered was on shorthanded opportunities the Bruins' aggressive power play tended to concede. After allowing a league-high 12 goals this season when his team had a man advantage, he reversed that trend in Game 4 by stonewalling the Blue Jackets on five shorthanded scoring chances, including a crucial blocker save on Boone Jenner's penalty shot in the first period.
Kirk Irwin / Getty Images
Bobrovsky has been no slouch himself, recording a .933 save percentage (.951 at even-strength) to this point in the series. He'll be an early Conn Smythe Trophy candidate if the Jackets wind up advancing to the third round.
Now that these series are deadlocked after four games, it's interesting to contrast Boston-Columbus with the St. Louis Blues' ongoing showdown with the Dallas Stars. That matchup features two goaltenders — Jordan Binnington and Ben Bishop — who were expected to excel after looking unbeatable for much of the season.
Instead, each of them has been pedestrian, while Rask and Bobrovsky duel out east. If the Carolina Hurricanes finish off the New York Islanders sometime in the next week, their opponent in the Eastern Conference Final will likely be the team whose goalie doesn't regress first.
What else is worth watching for in Game 5 and beyond? The special-teams battle may finally be tilting in the Bruins' favor. Their power play was the NHL's third-strongest this season, but after clicking on seven of 16 opportunities in Round 1 against the Toronto Maple Leafs, it had managed just one goal in its first 10 tries against Columbus.
Credit the Jackets on that front: their penalty kill was tops in the league this year. It took Bergeron's resounding entrance into the series to solve Bobrovsky and that fearsome unit. Such is the benefit of having great offensive players.
Following the 4-1 win, the Bruins goaltender said it's "crazy" that Blue Jackets forward Artemi Panarin's goal couldn't be looked at after the fact, according to Sportsnet's Chris Johnston.
Panarin's first-period goal wasn't reviewed even though the puck touched the netting protecting spectators earlier in the play. The officials didn't initially see it hit the netting, and the play wasn't eligible for video review.
Rask admitted postgame he didn't notice it, either.
“If I saw it, then I would have probably slammed the stick and chased the refs," the netminder said.
Renowned neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee claims NHL commissioner Gary Bettman inaccurately described what she told him seven years ago when he recalled their discussion during his testimony in Ottawa this week.
"Mr. Bettman misrepresented our 2012 conversation," McKee wrote in a statement Thursday, according to TSN's Rick Westhead. "Our research at Boston University and the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank clearly shows that chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is associated with ice hockey play."
While testifying before a subcommittee on sports-related concussions on Parliament Hill Wednesday, Bettman gave his account of their meeting.
"Dr. Ann McKee ... told me in my office that hockey and football are not the same," the commissioner said. "We don't have the repetitive head contact and impact that some of the other sports do. While we understand that this is an issue that needs to be constantly followed and focused on, there have not been conclusive determinations."
McKee, an expert in degenerative brain conditions who was named one of TIME's 100 most influential people in 2018, outlined the evidence that supports her conclusion.
"We have found CTE in every former NHL player we have examined and we have also found it in amateur hockey players, some of whom had no significant fighting exposure," she wrote in Thursday's statement. "We would be delighted to have Mr. Bettman visit the Brain Bank and discuss our research on CTE and repetitive brain trauma so that any future statements will more accurately reflect the state of the science."
Bettman also testified Wednesday that he believes banning hits to the head would eliminate body checking altogether.
The Columbus Blue Jackets appear to have caught a major break early in Game 4 on Thursday night.
Facing a 2-0 deficit in the first period, Artemi Panarin bagged his fifth goal of the playoffs to get the Jackets on the board, except the referees didn't notice the puck deflected into the spectator netting earlier in the play.
The refs didn't see the puck went out of play and it was not eligible for video review.
The NHL has already received criticism for its review policies during this year's playoffs, as the inability to look at a missed call in the third period of Game 7 between the San Jose Sharks and Vegas Golden Knights drastically changed the outcome of the series.
In this episode, theScore colleagues Josh Wegman and Sean O'Leary join John to discuss the early stages of the postseason's second round. Topics include:
Former NHL defenseman John Erskine was severely injured in a highway accident early Wednesday morning, his former agent, Pat Morris, confirmed to TSN's Rick Westhead.
According to the Ontario Provincial Police, a collision occurred at 12:48 a.m. Wednesday morning on Highway 401 near the town of Napanee, Ont., after a pickup truck collided with a transport truck while driving the wrong way in the eastbound lanes.
Morris said his former client is hospitalized with severe injuries but did not have any further information.
Police arrested the driver of the pickup truck, a 38-year-old man from Elginburg, Ont., at the scene of the collision. He was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to the OPP. The driver of the transport truck was not injured.
An investigation into the accident continues and charges have not yet been laid, OPP spokeswoman Const. Shannon Cork told Westhead on Thursday.
A second-round pick of the Dallas Stars in 1998, Erskine played 491 NHL contests split between the Stars, New York Islanders, and Washington Capitals. The Kingston, Ont., native last played in the league in April 2014.
Hockey Hall of Famer Red Kelly died Thursday at the age of 91, his family announced.
Kelly spent the first 13 years of his career as a Detroit Red Wings defenseman, winning four Stanley Cups, three Lady Byng trophies, and one Norris Trophy, and collecting 472 points in 846 games along the way.
The Simcoe, Ontario native played the next eight years with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs moved him to center and he succeeded after the position change, tallying 351 points in 470 games while adding another Lady Byng and four more Stanley Cups to his resume.
Kelly won more Stanley Cups than any player in NHL history to not play for the Montreal Canadiens.
He also enjoyed a 10-year coaching career. The legend even dipped his toes into politics before his playing days ended, as he was elected to the House of Commons in 1962.
Kelly was named to the "100 Greatest NHL Players" list in 2017. Both the Maple Leafs and Red Wings have retired his No. 4.
