After four years, Scott Gomez decided to don a new helmet last night. Different brand and all, right in the middle of the playoffs. More protective, too.
But Gomez and the Devils agreed he had suffered no head injury, no concussion, from his ice-shaking collision with teammate Grant Marshall that knocked Gomez out of the Devils’ 2-1 victory Wednesday in Game 1 against the Bruins.
So Gomez and his new helmet were back in the lineup for Game 2 last night at the Meadowlands. He would only admit to a slightly sore neck from what the team called “whiplash.”
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Gomez said. “I’m good, ready, excited and thankful.”
Gomez was hospitalized briefly Wednesday night for tests, ostensibly to check for a concussion or worse. He rode the stationary bike rather than participate in an optional skate Thursday, held off the ice by the training staff, but was practicing with the team in its morning workout yesterday, wearing his new helmet.
“It’s just the playoffs,” Gomez said. “I was going to switch to it anyway.”
So why not before Game 1?
Gomez said he’d receive a new television as a promotional consideration for changing helmet brands, and his mother in Alaska needs a new TV.
“It’s a little more protective,” he admitted. “My helmet was pretty beat up.”
Gomez said, when asked, that he has never had a concussion, and that he did not discuss the hit or after-effects with Oleg Tverdovsky, who had to secretly travel to Montreal in January for a second opinion that he had suffered a concussion in November, while the Devils blamed his nausea and dizziness on a virus.
Gomez had come off the bench in the first and collided with Marshall near the Bruin blue line, then headed back toward his bench. He had a glazed look on his face and stumbled across the threshold, falling down.
Once seated on the bench, he sat upright for a minute, then nearly fell backward off the bench, backstopped by trainer Bill Murray. Gomez skated a shift in the second, but after conferring with Murray, left the game for good.
Gomez, the NHL’s 2000 Rookie of the Year, said he’s not afraid of being hit again.
“No, knock on wood, unless I hit my own guy,” Gomez said. “It was kind of a freak accident. How many times have I hit my own player?”
With Gomez ready, both teams were expected to send the same lineup into last night, except that the Bruins would use Jeff Hackett to back up Steve Shields in goal, a job that fell to Tim Thomas in the opener.
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Game 3 is tomorrow afternoon in Boston . . . Bruin defenseman Sean O’Donnell sat out again with a foot injury, and it is a question whether he can play at all in this series.
Turner Stevenson said he did not hear from the league after Bruin GM-coach Mike O’Connell asked for Stevenson to be suspended for first-shift hit on Bryan Berard.