Boston's Gregory Campbell was engaged with two Penguins in the left circle, defensemen Chris Letang and Brooks Orpik, three referees wedged between the combatants, when Boston's Shawn Thornton skated up behind Orpik, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him backwards onto the ice.
Just 20 seconds into the game, Orpik had laid out Bruins' forward Loui Eriksson with a vicious blindside body check on open ice - only Zdeno Chara seeming to have issue with it at the time, but Thornton's unsuccessful attempt at goading Orpik into fisticuffs suggested he wanted a piece of him in retaliation...
...but Orpik wouldn't bite, and what happened next was Thornton letting his frustration and anger get the best of him, straddling the prone and defenseless Orpik and ripping the defenseman with two successive right fists to the head, the first one dazing Orpik, the second finishing him off before Thornton was pulled off of the now unconscious Orpik.
Pittsburgh players immediately started waving frantically toward the medical staff who came onto the ice and called for the stretcher at once - Orpik was carefully rolled onto a backboard and immobilized and Thornton was escorted off the ice.
Orpik was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital where the Penguins released a status that read simply:
Brooks Orpik taken to Mass General Hospital where he is "alert" and "conscious." Good news for the Boston College guy #BruinsTalk
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) December 8, 2013 Thornton faces automatic suspension for receiving a match penalty - there has been no word on Eriksson's status, so this blog will update this article when a status on either is given.
http://www.sportsinjuryalert.com/2013/12/penguins-orpik-awake-and-conscious-at.html
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