Who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tampa media was trying to bait him into saying something like that.

I’ve seen dirty hits, and that wasn’t one of them. As far as I’m concerned, the matter’s closed with this comment.

If Heward offered a non-committal quote like, “Well that’s just part of the game, so you move on from it” or “Right now I’m just focusing on getting back on the ice” I think you could speculate as to how he really felt about it. But he didn’t. He came out praising or even defending Ovechkin several times: “he’s probably one of the cleanest players in the NHL”, “now that I know it was him, I know it wasn’t intentional”, “I totally agree, and I think it was an accident.” Those aren’t the kinds of things you say just to get a reporter off your back.

I’m sure if he thought it was a dirty hit, he’d say something along the lines of “I thought it was a dirty hit.”

Sure, if that’s the way he felt about it. I don’t ever recall hockey players being very diplomatic when it comes to getting injured; especially if they feel it’s the result of a cheap shot. Clearly this is not the case…so to answer your ?, yes, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if some of the ’Bolts had said, “That Dirty Ruski”.

Mike Van Ryn hit -
“It was a dirty hit” said Maple Leafs Matt Stajan. “It’s something that can’t happen in the game. Luckily we made them pay.”
Stajan was asked if there should be discipline to Kostopolous, to which he replied “I hope so.”
He later went on to say, “He (Kostopolous) is a good guy and he plays the game properly, but I hope the league takes a look at this.”

Tits hit -
“Whether it was cheap hit or not, when one of your best players gets knocked out like that, you’re not going to say it’s OK – you want to respond to it,” said Laraque.

Sutter hit -
“It was a hard hit, a legal hit … but something has to be done about players being hit in the head while in a vulnerable position.”
Sutter said that when he played, such a hit would lead to repercussions. “I’m not talking about suspensions or penalties, either,” Brent Sutter said. "If a player got hit in the head, whether it was clean or dirty, you knew what was going to happen. It was going to be a long night for the guy who did the hitting. And the next time, it would be a long night.

He jumped McLean, pretty much.

Here’s the official recap:

Crosby, whose only other fight came against Boston’s Andrew Ference last season, threw his gloves off and grabbed an apparently unsuspecting McLean, who was kneeling over to take the faceoff. McLean eventually was able to drop his gloves and attempted a few swings but did not connect on any.