Toronto Maple Leafs forward Cedric Pare offered his best wishes towards Montreal Canadiens forward Patrik Laine, after a knee-on-knee collision that forced Laine out of Saturday’s preseason contest.
While the Canadiens were on the power play, Laine gathered the puck from centre ice and crossed over to the left side to gain some separation on the zone entry. As he attempted to cut back to the middle lane, Pare and Jacob Quillan closed in on him to prevent him from getting open. While trying to avoid the blockade, Laine’s knee made contact with Pare’s and he had to be helped off the ice.
Patrik Laine is forced to leave the game with a knee injury after colliding with Cedric Pare. pic.twitter.com/3rAOIRrfrQ
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) September 28, 2024
When asked by reporters after the game about the hit in question, Pare stressed that there was no attempt to injure and he hoped that Laine was okay.
“It’s a fast game, it wasn’t my intention. It’s just unfortunate,” Pare said. “I hope he’s fine. It wasn’t my intention. I didn’t mean to do that.”
It is a tough break for the Canadiens to see one of their big off-season acquisitions potentially miss a considerable amount of time.
“It was just a tough play,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said on what he saw on the Pare-Laine collision. “He’s trying to beat a guy, they ended up colliding. That’s all I saw, I never really looked at it any closer than that.”
No one inside the Bell Centre was too pleased with what transpired, especially Canadiens defenceman Arber Xhekaj. He took matters into his own hands a few shifts later by going after Pare and delivered a flurry of punches, which resulted in Xhekaj getting 27 penalty minutes which included a game misconduct and an ejection.
Arber Xhekaj unloads on Pare after he injured Laine. #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/lq75y4fMmN
— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) September 28, 2024
“I understand he’s gotta defend his teammates,” Pare said when asked what he was thinking when Xhekaj went after him. “I wasn’t ready for that. It kind of caught me by surprise, but I know what he’s trying to do and I gotta face it.”
The fans at the Bell Centre booed Pare every time he touched the puck for the rest of the game. While Pare insists he had no malicious intent on the collision in question, having to play through a hostile environment afterward can be daunting no matter who the player is.
Berube praised the 25-year-old forward for how he composed himself in the hostile environment and his overall performance on the night.
“I thought he played a good game,” he said. “I don’t think he got affected by it. I think he stood his ground and just played and I thought he had a good game tonight.”
Because Pare has yet to crack the NHL in his career so far, Saturday night was his first time playing at the Bell Centre. Having grown up in the city of Levis, which is located opposite Quebec City, the preseason game was a homecoming of sorts for him, which he will now always remember because of what transpired on the ice.
Pare acknowledged that he heard the boos raining down on him at the Bell Centre, but he was too focused on his game to let it get to him.
“It was fun, even if I got booed by the fan which I understand,” he said. “Like I said, it wasn’t my intention and I hope he’s fine.”
