Modin scored with the man advantage against his former club as the Kings routed the Columbus Blue Jackets 6-0 in the NHL on Monday.
“It was a great opportunity for me to get a chance to be back in the playoffs again and be on a team that’s right in the mix,” Modin said. “The first three games have been really good for me. I’m getting some power-play time, and it’s a lot of fun.”
Modin made it 5-0 at 4:20 of the second period with a short backhand that beat former Kings goalie Mathieu Garon to the stick side while Derek Dorsett was off for cross-checking Jarret Stoll.
The goal was Modin’s fourth in 27 games this season, and second in three games since the Kings acquired him from the Blue Jackets on Wednesday for a conditional seventh-round pick in the June draft.
“It’s always nice to score against your old team,” Modin said. “It feels really good on the line I’m playing on right now. (Michal) Handzus is a great center. He’s able to hold onto the puck and find holes, and me and Simmer are just trying to get open for him to make some plays. So it’s been working pretty good so far.”
Stars 3 Capitals 3, SO: In Washington, Marty Turco made 49 saves, Brad Richards had a goal and an assist, and the Dallas Stars scored three times in six shots early in the third period en route to a 4-3 shootout victory over the Capitals on Monday night, ending Washington’s club-record home winning streak at 13 games.
Washington’s Alex Ovechkin snapped a season-high, six-game goal drought by scoring twice to match Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby for the league lead with 44. Ovechkin’s second goal came with 3:16 left in the third period and tied the game.
But Turco stopped Ovechkin in the opening round of the shootout, and the Stars went on to take it 2-1, with Richards and Loui Eriksson beating Semyon Varlamov.
Meantime, hits to the head that can cause concussions were the main topic as NHL general managers began their annual meetings Monday in Boca Raton, Fla.
A discussion of a two-year independent medical study undertaken by the league included a video presentation showing footage of a number of well-known hits to the head during games. The league estimates there are 60,000 to 70,000 body hits during a season, and during the past 2 1/2 years there have been 200 concussions reported among players.
In 21 games reviewed from this season, showing an average of 22 contacts to the head per game, 30 percent of those hits were shoulder to head. Most body checks with the shoulder are considered legal hits.
“We’re looking at can we reduce concussions that come from legal hits?” said Colin Campbell, the NHL’s director of hockey operations. “Our challenge today, tomorrow and Wednesday at this meeting is to see if we can arrive at some sort of conclusion that will make the game safer to play and reduce concussions.
“What we don’t want to do is damage one of the basic fibers of the game.”
The NHL is struggling to minimize concussions without damaging a sport that clearly relies on its physicality to enhance spectator entertainment.
“The hits are great until someone gets hurt,” Campbell said. “The question is, do we want to take shoulders to the head out of the game of hockey?”
Dr. Winne Meeuwisse, the NHL consulting physician, said the study did not pinpoint a general trend in the type of hits that result in concussions. Meeuwisse also pointed out not every concussion results from a direct hit to the head, but could happen from a whiplash effect from a hit to another part of the body.
“They happen at all different places and in all different ways,” he said. “They’re open ice. They’re along the boards and glass, which is different than being against the boards and glass, which also happens.
“They happen in the offensive and defensive zone, the neutral zone, and they happen in all different mechanisms of contact.”
The issue of hits to the heads was illuminated at the meeting by the concussion suffered by Boston Bruins center Marc Savard when Pittsburgh Penguins forward Matt Cooke blindsided him with a shoulder hit Sunday.
Peter Chiarelli, the general manager of the Bruins, said Savard was cleared to fly home to Boston on Monday. Savard told him he was “very tired and wanted to go to bed.”
