BOSTON — Given his issues with post-concussion syndrome in the past year, Marc Savard is just about the last player the Bruins want to see dropping the gloves. But there was no way the feisty center was staying out of the biggest brawl of the season.
So after Milan Lucic, Andrew Ference and Nathan Horton had all become involved in an altercation after Atlanta's Freddy Meyer hit Lucic with a questionable shot to the head with 4:06 remaining in Thursday's 4-1 win over the Thrashers, Savard couldn't help himself. He dropped his gloves too and started trading punches with Atlanta center Bryan Little.
"I was with Little and everyone was going around me and I was like 'God, I've got to go, you know?'" Savard said. "I don't usually go too often. I've got two fights against Todd Marchant in my career and that's it and that was the Battle of Alberta, so I just thought it was time to do something and I tried. Once the jersey came over his arms, though, I was done. It was fun, though."
Savard did admit that his concussion history crossed his mind as he started scrapping, but he waded into the fray anyway.
"The first thought obviously, was my head a bit," Savard said. "I don't want to get punched in the head and something happens where I'm done, but I just battled and tried to do what [Shawn] Thornton taught me a couple times in case it ever happened. I wouldn't say I'm a professional, but I made sure I got five for fighting this time, instead of two for roughing, four for roughing. I got a good cheer, too, for the five I heard, so that was nice."
Bruins coach Claude Julien shared Savard's concerns when he saw the playmaker get involved, but Julien was at least relieved that the 5-foot-10, 191-pound Savard was paired off with the similarly sized Little (5-foot-11, 185 pounds), who also doesn't possess much pugilistic experience.
"You never like to see certain guys get into those situations but, you know, he's had those instances happen a couple of times," Julien said. "It was Little, it wasn’t [Anthony] Stewart or [Evander] Kane, so that was a little more reassuring, I guess, in a way. But you know what you want to see is your guys stick up for each other and what was probably good about Marc is that he didn't fear the consequences — he went and did what he had to do."
And at least one Bruin wasn't the least bit surprised to see Savard in the middle of the action.
"Well, you never know," said Ference when asked if he expected things to get that rough at the end of the game. "When you have tough guys like Savvy out there you never know what could happen.
"What? It's true," Ference added. "He likes to talk about that Dallas game a while ago, so he was itching, I think, for a little fun."
