Bruins' Hall says he should have fought after hit on Avalanche's MacKinnon

Bruins’ Taylor Hall is re-thinking whether he should've just fought Gabriel Landeskog, after his clean hit bloodied up Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon, because then he wouldn’t have played the rest of the game with a target on his back.

Boston Bruins forward Taylor Hall has a regret about the hit that laid out Colorado Avalanche superstar centre Nathan MacKinnon on Wednesday night.

"Looking back, ... maybe I just drop the gloves with (Gabriel) Landeskog and get it over with," Hall told reporters via a Zoom call on Friday. "And then I'm able to kind of play the rest of the game without as big a target on my back."

MacKinnon was injured in the first period of Wednesday's game between the Avs and Bruins. While skating near the Avalanche blue line in open ice, MacKinnon advanced the puck. A split second later, Hall connected with a hit and, as contact was being made, MacKinnon raised his own stick, the shaft of which hit him in the face.

MacKinnon fell to the ice and, in visible distress, was bleeding profusely from his nose after the collision. While MacKinnon was lying on the ice, Hall was grabbed by Avs' captain Landeskog, who challenged Hall to a fight.

MacKinnon left the game and did not return. The Avs announced on Friday that he suffered a facial fracture and a concussion in the incident and could miss three games.

Referees on the ice initially assessed Hall a five-minute major for the incident. After a video review, the penalty was reduced to a minor for interference.

Replays showed the hit was clean. Hall said his refusal to fight initially was about competitive advantage.

"If I could get one or two power plays out of them, I thought that would help our team more than me fighting," he said.

"But I don't know, it's hockey. Someone told me one time, never fight on someone else's terms. So, I'm not a fighter by any stretch of the imagination. It was a clean hit, it was a hockey hit. I never want to see anyone leave the game, and certainly my intention was to just end the play when he had the puck there. I didn't want to see him bloodied or anything like that, so it was a bit of a stressful night for the rest of the game there, just a weird night overall."

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