So the NHL referees are pretty much done watching the game, that’s all, amirite?
Tom Wilson of the Capital, who threw his lifelong release from prison, which he was endowed with by the laudable Department for Player Safety, hit Brandon Carlo with his head in the glass on Friday, and the league immediately went into contortion. trying to find the technicality to get the predator out of Washington.
See … see right there … when you slow it down, he brushes Carlo’s hand, first the glove … no, slow it down more … see …? “
This happened after the shot, in which the referees Dean Morton and Pierre Lambert did not request any penalty in the game, which sent Carlo Bruinilor to the hospital from which he was released on Saturday night.
But earlier on Saturday, in response to what was believed to be a response to the firestorm triggered in response to this example of blind justice, the league invited Wilson to a personal video conference hearing that eventually led to the suspension of seven free games.
We’ll see, but it looks like Commissioner Gary Bettman could have had enough in the end.
However, Bettman still has to deal with whether he wants to get into the weeds.
A dangerous and apparently intentional blow perceived by Brett Pesce of the hurricanes against Robby Fabbri of the Red Wings on Thursday attracted only a minor penalty for starting and no additional discipline in the league, when it deserved a penalty in the match and the suspension of several games. for the flagrant act of violence.
NHL Rule 52.2: “Any player who is guilty of a kick will receive a match penalty.”
Except, apparently, for games in which TJ Luxmore and Frederic L’Ecuyer are referees.
In 1998, when Colin Campbell took over as vice president of hockey operations responsible for additional discipline, three players were suspended for the shot until the end of November. The NHL has been under some repression.
But in this brave and new world, there has not been an NHL player suspended for a kick in more than six years since the Bruins ‘Brad Marchand received a two-game penalty for taking down Rangers’ Derick Brassard in January. 2015.
This was Stephane Quintal’s first year as head of the player safety department, a position he held in 2016-17. Since George Parros succeeded Quintal (well) in early 2017-18, no player has been held accountable for this cowardly and dangerous violation of rules and etiquette.
So that was Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday, Alex Ovechkin of the Capital threw the Bruins’ Trent Frederic into the family’s jewelry, as if the matador Manolete throwing a beast in the bullring, received a two-minute minor for, get this, cutting and he was happily sent on his way with a $ 5,000 fine.
Discouragement seems to be a thing of the past, as is the playoffs in Buffalo.
The people in the league’s hockey have no appetite for repression, nor does the union forever oppose harsh condemnation guidelines. This will not change until the overwhelming majority of players who are prey to predators demand change from the union.
But do you know what is true about the vast majority of players? Looks like I think the guys on the other teams should be suspended.
And as I have written many times, if they do not care about their own health and safety, why should anyone else? own health and safety, why should anyone else?
This is a small circle of friends, as Phil Ochs might have noticed, from whom NHL teams are now hiring.
If it hadn’t been curious enough that the PPP-Penguins pulled Brian Burke out of the well-deserved retirement in the cold to lead the team’s hockey operations, the Flames couldn’t have found a more creative way to replace Geoff Ward. behind the bench than to look back to the future for Darryl Sutter?
Yes, Burke was the GM president of Anaheim’s 2007 Stanley Cup title, but Jean Perron once won a Canadiens Cup as a coach in 1986 and no one marked him a decade and a half later to go behind. an NHL bank. .
Burke served as NHL general manager or president of hockey operations for 19 seasons. Outside of the two-year cycle at Anaheim, in which the Ducks advanced to the conference finals in 2006 and then took the title a year later, his teams won the grand total of the two playoff rounds.
But this is the man that Mario Lemieux chose to guide his team in the future. Progressive thinking in Pittsburgh.
The same goes for Calgary, where the Flames are the fourth coach in five seasons and could come up with nothing more creative than hiring the guy who was last behind their bench in 2005-06.
What’s next? Doug MacLean is back behind the bench in Columbus if this is for John Tortorella?
On Friday night, the sharks were playing in alternate gray uniforms and no player could be identified by their number. Meanwhile, Red Wings inverted backs look like practice jerseys, which you could buy at a Schlock store.
But … if you noticed how the numbers and names appeared on the Rangers’ Statues of Liberty’s last weekend compared to the first few times they were worn, the director of the main equipment Acasio Marques, who redid the numbers and the name by illuminating the dark shadows, becomes the credit for improvement.
A goodbye to Mark Pavelich, a troubled member of the 1980 Miracle Team USA and the popular Ranger who was one of the faces of Herb Brooks’ smurfs who passed away on Thursday in tragic circumstances. May he find the peace that eluded him in the last years of his life.
Finally, when they made the model of what a hockey parent should be, they did it in the person of Walter Gretzky. Wayne Gretzky’s father was humble, supportive, understood that youth hockey should be fun and had a heart as big as his beloved Canada.
Known as Wally for all her friends and for the masses of children she touched and inspired, she was as much a model as the number 99.
Walter Gretzky’s passing certainly leaves a hole in the heart of the game, but it will be forever filled more with his spirit of generosity that will live on for eternity.