Horton/By S. Bradley

BOSTON — Bruins forward Shawn Thornton is never one to mince words.

So when he was asked about the hit Aaron Rome through at Nathan Horton that sent the Boston winger to the hospital, Thornton told it like it is.

“We talk about it all the time as players,” said Thornton after he helped the Bruins to an 8-1 win in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final at TD Garden. “That’s the shit we’ve got to get out of the game. Headshots, blindside, that’s what the rule is there for. So I got to see the replay and I don’t think that stuff is warranted. And that’s on us as players. It’s out of our hands now. It needs to be addressed because there’s too many of those things going on in this league as far as I’m concerned.”

As of the postgame media availability, there was no update on Horton since the one during the game that said he was at the hospital and was able to move his extremities. He had left the rink on a stretcher.

The Bruins all talked about wanting to win the game for Horton and the team’s ceremonial ugly windbreakers was hung in his stall after the game. Usually it goes to the player of the game.

Here’s a sampling of what other players and the coaches had to say about the hit:

Claude Julien
Looking back at the hit, you say ‘was it a dirty hit?’ I think what I would call it is it was a blindside hit that we’ve talked about taking out of the game. He made the pass. It was late. He came from the blindside. Whether it’s through the motion of the hit, it appeared he left his feet a little bit. You know, again, that’s my view on it. I’m not going to comment more than that. [I'll] say what I always say: let the league take care of it. We’re trying to clean that out. Let’s see where they go with that.

Alain Vigneault
You know, obviously you never want to see any player leave in that situation. I think our whole team and myself and the whole organization hopes that he’s all right. The hit obviously seemed to be a little bit late, so … He got five minutes for interference and was kicked out of the game.

Brad Marchand
I didn’t really see it. I saw the replay and I think it kind of looked like a tough situation and he was a little late. It was just one of those things that we’re trying to get out of the game.

Manny Malhotra
I thought it was very clean hit. The timing was maybe a fraction off but all in all you see those hits on a daily basis.

Dennis Seidenberg
Well I’m sure they’re going to look at it. It looked like it was a late hit and that’s what they’re trying to get out of the game. So I’m not quite sure, I didn’t really see it close up, so I’m sure they’re going to look at it.

Henrik Sedin
Yeah, I mean it’s not fun. I hope he’s OK. It’s never fun to see a guy go down like that. I saw up on the big screen that he seemed to be all right after all. I haven’t seen the replay but what I saw, I thought it was a late hit but I don’t think it was a blindside.

Zdeno Chara
Well, obviously that’s something we try to get rid of in the game. And it’s very unfortunate when you see one of your teammates laying on the ice like that so it’s up to the league to look at it and make a decision.

Mark Recchi
We knew it was a late hit. But we’re more concerned about his health at this time. The league can take care of the rest. The refs did a good job. Like I said, the league will handle things the way they handle it. We can’t control that. We focus on what we have to do now.

Published By Tue. June 7, 2011 12:17 am EDT