Kelly Olynyk reveals Dougie Hamilton's injury in postgame comments

Wednesday was quite a day for Celtics center Kelly Olynyk. After taking an elbow from Shavlik Randolph during the pregame shootaround, he showed up at TD Garden with a massively swollen left eyelid and was doubtful to play until the last minute. But play he did, scoring 19 points in Boston's win over the Pacers.

After the game Olynyk, who as the Celtics' resident Canadian is friendly with several Bruins players, spoke about the toughness he exhibited and compared his situation to that of injured Bruins defenseman Dougie Hamilton. When asked if he considered not playing, Olynyk had this to say (via Celtics.com):

Yeah, but I remember two days ago I was texting Dougie Hamilton and he told me he broke his ribs and he’s trying to come back before the playoffs and I was like, man I can’t sit out, he’s gonna rip me…all those hockey guys would have killed me so I had to do it.

What Olynyk apparently forgot was that the specific nature of Hamilton's injury was not known. The 21-year-old last played on March 21, when he exited a game in Florida with an upper-body injury. Under NHL rules, teams are not required to give any more details and they don't, especially when it's an injury that can be exploited or targeted when the player does return.

On Thursday morning, Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli said simply that the report is "not entirely accurate," but it's safe to say that he and head coach Claude Julien will not be pleased that Olynyk disclosed the information.


Of course, if the Bruins need to add a hard hitter to the blue line for their own playoff run, they may already have an in-house solution: just put some skates on Shavlik Randolph and set him loose on the opposition.

Follow Nick García on Twitter at @N_A_Garcia

Image credit: Elise Amendola/AP
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