Matt Hunwick Hospitalized

It's been a rough week for Matt Hunwick. After getting his eye-gouged by Mike Komisarek, news broke this morning of the Bruins rookie being taken to a Boston area hospital. Following a team meeting at the Bruins practice rink in Wilmington, it's said that Hunwick "didn't feel right". From there the trainers called an ambulance, and Hunwick was taken.

"It's related to his spleen, and that's all I can tell you right now" a concerned Claude Julien said to the media. He followed that up by saying there was no prior knowledge that something was wrong. "He was fine," said Julien. "When he entered this morning he was still feeling fine.". At the moment, little information is available to anyone, even the Bruins as everything happened so fast. When asked if Hunwick lost consciousness Julien told the media "Not to my knowledge".

For many NHL fans, this story seems very familiar to one that happened during last years NHL playoffs. New York Rangers LW Sean Avery suffered a lacerated spleen during last year's playoffs. For Avery, the injury was sustained in a collision during an Eastern Conference Semi-Finals game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Although it's unknown if Matt's injury is as severe as the injury that ended Sean Avery's 2007 post-season, the history of spleen injuries and the playoffs are not promising. Dating back to as far as 2001, Peter Forsberg suffered stomach pains, upon further tests it was revealed that the Avalanche star had a ruptured spleen, forcing him to miss the next 2 rounds of the NHL Playoffs.

As for the next question of who'll fill in for Hunwick, it's not hard to realize that Shane Hnidy will probably be playing in the Bruins line-up tonight. The 33 year old Hnidy played in 65 games for the Boston Bruins, scoring 12 points (3 G 9 A) and finishing with a +6. He often found himself in the press box at seasons end due to the arrival of Steve Montador and consistently strong play of Matt Hunwick. However, Hnidy will have no problem shaking off any rust he may have as he played in the Bruins final 3 games of the regular season.