THRASHERS: Boulton: Nose broken by cheap shot

Sunrise, Fla. —- Eric Boulton practiced Friday with a red bruise on his right eye and a newly broken nose.

He was angry about the nose.

Bumps and bruises are part of the job of being the Thrashers’ on-ice policeman, and you’d expect Boulton’s face to bear the marks of two fights and a scuffle Thursday night with the New Jersey Devils’ Michael Rupp. Boulton’s nose has been broken often enough that he has lost track of the count.

But he will remember this one. It came at the end of his first fight in the 4-0 Thrashers victory.

“He threw his elbow into my nose while I was on the ice,” Boulton said. “I watched the video. It’s pretty obvious that he did it on purpose.

“It’s a hard enough job to do as it is without having to worry about stuff like that when the fight’s over. … For most tough guys in the league there’s a code. I don’t hit guys when they’re on the ice. You can hurt guys.”

Boulton reacted by going after Rupp every chance he had the rest of the game. It brought Boulton a season-high 26 penalty minutes: six for roughing, including a double-minor, two five-minute penalties for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct.

Thrashers goalie Kari Lehtonen wasn’t pleased. He was working on the team’s first shutout of the season and had to survive four shorthanded situations in the third period to get it. (Nathan Oystrick’s cross-checking penalty accounted for the fourth.)

“That doesn’t make me very happy to see our guys going to the box,” Lehtonen said. “We were able to kill [the penalties], and that was a great thing. It was a lot easier that the game was 4-0 at that time. If it would have been tighter, I might have snapped a little bit for a couple of guys. I don’t think they were too many great penalties that we should take.”

Thrashers coach John Anderson agreed, but only to a point. On one of the penalties, he said, Boulton was reacting after a late hit on a teammate. And Anderson said he thought the four-minute minor should have been a two-minute penalty.

“I want Eric to continue to police for our guys, but on the other hand, we’ve got to be a little bit more [judicious],” Anderson said. “I talked to Eric. I said, ‘I don’t want you to change your style any way. We’ve just got to be a little smarter.’ “

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>When: 1 p.m. today

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