NHL has a good hold on physical play
SIX MINUTES, 23 seconds remaining. One snapshot in a long season. The Flyers' Chris Pronger, trying to control the puck along the boards, his back to the middle of the ice. The Kings' Jarret Stoll, bearing down, hitting Pronger from behind and crashing him into the boards. Pronger getting up and offering an indignant, retaliatory shove. The only penalty going to Pronger.
SIX MINUTES, 23 seconds remaining. One snapshot in a long season. The Flyers' Chris Pronger, trying to control the puck along the boards, his back to the middle of the ice. The Kings' Jarret Stoll, bearing down, hitting Pronger from behind and crashing him into the boards. Pronger getting up and offering an indignant, retaliatory shove. The only penalty going to Pronger.
Nobody was hurt. Life went on. Sometime between the moment it happened and the next morning, someone at the NHL office in Toronto, at some level, will have taken a look at the video. It was close to being a really dangerous bit of business, but it wasn't. It was one of those things that should have been a penalty but probably wasn't a crime.
"He got me from behind," Pronger said, after the Flyers' 1-0 loss. "I knew he was coming. He told me he was coming. There was nowhere I could go. I had my stick on the puck so I couldn't put my hands up to protect myself or do anything like that. There's not much else I can do there."
He told you?
"Yeah."
(Stoll confirmed this after the game.)
"I knew he was coming already," Pronger said. "That doesn't mean he's got to hit me from behind, though."
With that, for the Flyers, 27 games to go.
The NHL is a league that teeters on the edge of madness a decent percentage of the time, ever close to that dangerous bit of business. It was what they all signed up for, and they all know it. Most players recognize the boundaries, even as they sometimes nudge beyond them. Most of what happens in a season falls into the category of acceptable mayhem. It is an undeniable element of the NHL's appeal.
Sometimes, though, the line between vigilance and vigilantism is crossed. That it happened the other night on Long Island in a game between the Penguins and Islanders is obvious enough. When that takes place, the conversation about violence in hockey is worth having. But, just once, can we do it without the sanctimony?
Not this time, apparently.
Last Friday, the Islanders' Trevor Gillies dropped the Penguins' Eric Tangradi with a vicious elbow, then punched him a couple of times for good measure. His suspension, handed down by the NHL, was for nine games. Matt Martin, who jumped Pens angel Max Talbot and pummeled him from behind, was suspended for four games. Pittsburgh's Eric Godard received a pretty-much-automatic 10-game suspension for coming off of the bench to join a fight - one involving his goaltender.
In addition, the Islanders were fined $100,000, real money for a team that isn't exactly printing it.
But, for the Penguins, that wasn't enough. With that, cue the statement from Mario Lemieux (along with the accompanying, dramatic musical soundtrack).
"Hockey is a tough, physical game, and it always should be," Lemieux said. "But what happened Friday night on Long Island wasn't hockey. It was a travesty. It was painful to watch the game I love turn into a sideshow like that.
"The NHL had a chance to send a clear and strong message that those kinds of actions are unacceptable and embarrassing to the sport. It failed.
"We, as a league, must do a better job of protecting the integrity of the game and the safety of our players. We must make it clear that those kinds of actions will not be tolerated and will be met with meaningful disciplinary action.
"If the events relating to Friday night reflect the state of the league, I need to rethink whether I want to be a part of it."
Just to be completely accurate, Lemieux is the man who owns the team that leads the NHL in both major penalties and minor penalties. He is the man who employs Matt Cooke, a player who, at this point in an eventful career, could find his way to the dean of discipline's office blindfolded.
These are just a couple of things Lemieux needs to rethink, as long as he is in a rethinking mood.
Nine games is a real penalty, 11 percent of the season. In the entire history of the league, there have been only about 25 suspensions longer than nine games handed down.
Send a message? The NHL handed the Flyers' Steve Downie a 20-game suspension in 2007 for a vicious, flying headshot to the Senators' Dean McAmmond, and maybe Lemieux was looking for a big number such as that one to get everyone's attention. But viewing the video of the two hits leaves you with the unmistakeable conclusion that Downie's was illegal, airborne viciousness raised to a higher power, a much worse hit than Gilles' hit the other night.
Lemieux is understandably frustrated, with injured stars as the playoffs approach - including the concussed Sidney Crosby. Everybody involved in the collision sports, football and hockey, is worried about head injuries in a way that they have never been. At some point, either the players are going to have to get smaller or slower or the NHL and NFL are going to have to embrace the counterintuitive and remove some of the protective padding from players, padding that makes them feel invulnerable as they deliver their hits.
That is the conversation worth having. The rest of this is just talk, and sanctimony.
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