RALEIGH, N.C. -- Penguins left winger Matt Cooke said he wasn't surprised that the league didn't suspend him for his hit to the head of Boston center Marc Savard Sunday.
But he also wouldn't have been shocked if Colin Campbell, the league's director of hockey operations, had ordered him to sit out a few games.
"I prepared for the league to make a decision," Cooke said after the Penguins' game-day skate at the RBC Center today. "Either way, I was going to have to deal with it.
"They did their homework on these hits. . . . Right now, my thoughts are just with Savard, and that he (makes) a speedy recovery because it wasn't my intention to hit him and hurt him."
Cooke said he tried to get a message to Savard after the hit, which caused a grade 2 concussion, but has not spoken directly with him.
"I went to as (great) a length as I could to make sure he got the message," he said.
Cooke shrugged off a suggestion that, with the notoriety he has gained from the hit on Savard, he might be a marked man for officials in the weeks to come.
"I don't know that it's any different than it was before," he said.
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