Hawks' Petr Mrazek suffers 3rd groin injury of season originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Blackhawks goaltender Petr Mrazek left Tuesday's contest against the Boston Bruins in the second period with an apparent injury and did not return. He stopped all 16 shots before being relieved by Alex Stalock, who turned aside 23 of 26 shots and was credited with the win.
Originally, it looked like Mrazek may have exited because of the slapshot he took to the mask off the stick of Dmitry Orlov about a minute earlier. But that wasn't the case.
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Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson revealed after the game that Mrazek suffered a groin injury, which is his third one of the season. He made a couple quick stops on Trent Frederic and that's when he went over to the official to let him know he was removing himself from the game.
"Very similar injury to earlier in the year but not as severe," Richardson said following the 6-3 upset win over the Bruins. "So that’s good news. But we’ll have to reevaluate him tomorrow morning and get him checked out properly."
It sounds like Mrazek pulled him for precautionary reasons. He didn't want to aggravate it anymore, and you can imagine at this point that he's become pretty good at diagnosing his groin injuries after he dealt with it last season, too.
Mrazek isn't expected to be with the team for the start of their five-game road trip, but he will "probably" join them at some point.
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"I think they just said he pulled himself because he knows it could get worse if he stayed in, it could have been really bad," Richardson said. "So I think it was a smart call to get him out. Of course Alex is the type of goalie that can go into a situation like that, the way his play is and his manners, he can handle that situation. So it worked out well."
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