Just two months ago Washington defenseman Dennis Wideman had his own close encounter of the plexiglass kind after a loss to San Jose on Feb. 13.
"We lost in overtime or whatever and I was skating off the ice, actually walking off the ice right behind our bench and there was one of those panes of glass to keep the fans from leaning over," Wideman said after the Capitals' practice at the Garden on Friday. "Someone didn't install it correctly and boom, right on my head."
The Capitals actually lost 5-3 in regulation to the Sharks that night, but Wideman can be forgiven if the details are a little hazy.
"It knocked me out," Wideman said. "I was down for a little bit, and that's not nearly as big as the full-sized pane that Kreech got."
"Yikes, that’s dangerous," added Wideman, who played parts of four seasons with Krejci in Boston. "That's a lot of weight."
Fellow Washington blueliner Karl Alzner didn't see the glass strike Krejci, but when he heard about the incident, he immediately recalled Wideman's episode.
"I saw a picture of it," Alzner said. "It's funny because it happened to us this year too. It's funny that it falls out like that. There's a lot of pressure up against it. You’d think it would happen more when we go into it hitting guys at full speed.
"We were walking off and there were three or four kids banging the glass through the tunnel and it came down and hit Wides right in the side of the head," Alzner continued. "It took him down, the glass fell on top of him. It was pretty crazy."
Like Krejci, Wideman was shaken up but not seriously hurt.
"It rattled the cage a little bit, but I think it caught me mostly on the shoulder first," Wideman said.
Wideman kept his sense of humor about the incident, and upon hearing that Krejci was OK, joked about that too, noting that Krejci would have been safe if he had kept a little closer to 6-foot-9 Bruins captain Zdeno Chara.
"So Zee wasn't in the pile then?" Wideman said. "Because it would have got him first, right?"
Alzner saw the humor as well, though he was careful to clarify he was simply joking, lest the Bruins get any bulletin board material out of the incident.
"It's funny to see," Alzner said. "Hopefully he's not hurt. Well, I don't know if that's the right thing to say. Just kidding. It's scary to see that happen."
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