NHL players must step up if they want this headhunting to end
Rule 48.1 splits hairs so that it remains legal to crack skulls.
An overstatement? Well, of course, except the NHL and essentially all of its stake-holders are so fearful that banning all blows to the head would all but eliminate the little hitting that remains in the game, they are willing to accept injuries that result from the status quo as collateral damage.
And again, this isn’t merely, or even primarily, on Gary Bettman and Sixth Avenue. Surely it is not solely on the Department of Player Safety, which on Friday issued videos of four incidents in an attempt to clarify how Rule 48.1 applied to each and why supplementary discipline was or was not applied. They’d have better luck trying to explain the impact of tariffs.
To the best of my knowledge, that wasn’t Bettman with the gratuitous, sneaky shot to Blake Coleman’s head at the Rock in Game 3 of the Devils-Lightning series. No, that was a player by the name of Mikhail Sergachev, who received the puny punishment of a two-minute minor for his misdeed. And I don’t believe that was George Parros launching himself into Carl Soderberg in Game 4 of Nashville-Colorado, but rather a Predator (perhaps lower-case would apply as well here) called Ryan Hartman, who was given a measly one-game sentence for his transgression.
Rule 48.1 was ultimately adopted in 2010 in the wake of Matt Cooke’s blindside assault on Marc Savard and Aaron Rome’s shot against Nathan Horton after much kicking and screaming by the machismo wing of the league’s general managers. The rule at first banned hits that “targeted” the head. It was rewritten in 2013 to outlaw checks on which an opponent’s head was the “main point of contact … and was avoidable.”
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If the players wanted all hits to the head eliminated, they have never spoken up to that effect on a collective basis. This has never, to my knowledge, been an issue during the collective bargaining process. Players, through their union, argue against lengthy suspensions. There are select intelligent voices filling the room with pleas to ban all hits to the head, but there isn’t a hint of consensus on the issue from the people who have the most stake in it.
So on it goes. Hair-splitting and brain-rattling. That’s entertainment. That’s hockey.
Have they grown tired yet of Brian Burke in Calgary the way they grew tired of him in Toronto before that?
In his past nine years as a team executive, these past five as president of hockey operations for the Flames following four as president and general manager of the Maple Leafs, Macho Man’s teams have qualified for the playoffs twice, won one round, and have fired three coaches.
He has his Stanley Cup from Anaheim in 2007, when Scott Niedermayer decided he wanted to play with his brother and Burke’s then BFF Kevin Lowe gifted him Chris Pronger, and nobody can take that away from him.
But Terry Crisp and Jean Perron each won a Cup, too, and not only did no one ever confuse either of them with a hockey genius, chances are they didn’t labor under that misapprehension themselves.
Brendan Shanahan approached the deadline with the belief that the Maple Leafs’ time was not now, thus the chief executive and GM Lou Lamoriello declined to get into the trade market at the cost of their highly regarded youngsters.
With Toronto down 3-1 going into Saturday’s potential elimination game at home against a Boston team that has taken on the feel of a powerhouse, one can interpret Shanahan’s stance as just and wise.
Or perhaps as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So 2-seed Boston against 4-seed Toronto and 5-seed Pittsburgh against 6-seed Philadelphia on one side, with 2-seed Winnipeg vs. 4-seed Minnesota and 5-seed Anaheim against 6-seed San Jose on the other.
And if the Lighting and Bruins, each up 3-1 into Saturday, prevail, the top two seeds in the East will play in the second round. The same will happen in the West if the Predators get by the Avalanche and face the Jets, who beat the Wild in five.
Absurd.
The Wild have qualified for the playoffs for six straight years after the twin free-agent signings of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter during the summer of 2012 after having missed the previous four seasons. So there is that.
But Minnesota, losers in five to Winnipeg, has gone out in the first round three straight times and has won just two playoff rounds in the past six years.
And there are seven years to go at just over $7.538 million per for each on the contracts for Suter, who missed the playoffs with a broken ankle, and Parise, who went down in Game 3 with a broken sternum.
Always thought the Wild, with so many kids and seeming excess defensemen, would be perfect trade partners for the Rangers, notably Derek Stepan and Ryan McDonagh, but we’re told that nothing between the parties ever gained traction.
The Kings, by the way, have won one playoff game in the four years since winning the Cup in 2014, and that’s with franchise defenseman Drew Doughty, franchise center Anze Kopitar and franchise goaltender Jonathan Quick.
Zach Parise, Ryan Callahan; Ryan Callahan, Zach Parise.
Two guys with hearts bigger than their bodies, both of whom deserve a Cup before it’s over.