So NHL referees have finished policing the game, it’s almost, amirite?
Tom Wilson, who is flashing the lifelong card he released from jail equipped with the ridiculous Department of Player Safety, of the Capitals, slammed Brandon Carlo’s head into the glass on Friday and the league immediately went into ‘ an office came. try to find the technical to get the predator off Washington.
See … just see there … if you slow it down, he brushes Carlo’s wrist, glove-first … no, slow it down more … do you see …? “
That’s what was going on in the aftermath of the hit, where referees Dean Morton and Pierre Lambert called for no penalty at stake, which sent the Bruins’ Carlo to the hospital from which he was released on Saturday night.
But earlier Saturday, the league, it is believed, responded to a firestorm in response to this example of blind justice, inviting Wilson to a personal hearing via a video conference that eventually led to the suspension of seven games without pay. .
We’ll see, but it sounds like Commissioner Gary Bettman could have had enough of this at last.
However, there is more for Bettman to address if he wants to end up in the weeds.
A dangerous and seemingly deliberate result imposed by the Hurricanes’ Brett Pesce against Robby Fabbri of the Red Wings imposed only a small fine for the stumbling block and no further discipline of the league, resulting in a match penalty and suspension of several matches have been earned. for the blatant act of violence.
NHL Rule 52.2: “Any player found guilty of a bad footing will receive a match penalty.”
Except, apparently, for games in which TJ Luxmore and Frederic L’Ecuyer are the referees.
In 1998, when Colin Campbell accepted the appointment as VP of hockey operations over complementary discipline, three players were suspended by the end of November. The NHL was in a particular repression.
But in this brave new world, there has not been an NHL player suspended for more than six years for a bad footing because the Bruins ‘Brad Marchand received a two-game sentence for beating Rangers’ Derick Brassard decreased in January 2015.
This represents Stephane Quintal’s first year as head of the players’ safety department, a position he held until 2016-’17. Since George Parros succeeded Quintal (well) at the start of 2017-18, there is not a single player responsible for this cowardly and dangerous violation of rules and etiquette.
So it was Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday, the Capitals ‘Alex Ovechkin, the Bruins’ Trent Frederic speared in the family jewels as if he were the matador, Manolete who pushed an animal into the bullpen, got a two-minute minor, got it, and he was sent cheerfully. his way with a fine of $ 5,000.
Deterrence seems to be a thing of the past, like catching the playoffs in Buffalo.
The hockey people of the league have no appetite for oppression, nor does the union have the eternal opposition to harsh guidelines. This will not change until the vast majority of players who prey on predators demand change from the union.
But do you know what is also true with the vast majority of players? It seems like they just think guys in other teams should be suspended.
And as I have written many, many times, why would anyone else if they did not care about their own health and safety? own health and safety, why would anyone else?
It’s a small circle of friends, as Phil Ochs may have noticed, from which NHL teams now make their hire.
If it was not curious enough that the PPP Penguins dragged Brian Burke out of the well-deserved retirement into the cold to run the team’s hockey operations, the Flames could not have found a more creative way to replace Geoff Ward behind the bench than to not going back to the future for Darryl Sutter?
Yes, Burke did chair GM in the 2007 Stanley Cup title in Anaheim, but Jean Perron once won a trophy as coach of the Canadiens in 1986 and no one knocked him off a decade and a half later to to go behind an NHL bench. .
Burke has served 19 seasons as NHL general manager or president of hockey operations. In addition to the two-year streak in Anaheim in which the Ducks advanced to the conference finals in 2006 and won the title a year later, his teams won a total of two playoffs.
But this is the man Mario Lemieux has chosen to lead his team in the future. Progressive thinking in Pittsburgh.
The same in Calgary, where the Flames are their fourth coach in five seasons and could not think of anything more creative than appointing the man who was last behind their bench in 2005-06.
What’s next? Doug MacLean back behind the bench in Columbus if it’s for John Tortorella?
Friday night, the Sharks played in gray alternative uniforms and no player could be identified by his number. Meanwhile, the Red Wings’ inverted retros look like replica workout jerseys, something you can buy at a schlock store.
But … if you noticed how the numbers and names on the Rangers’ Statues of Liberty appeared last weekend compared to the first time they were worn, Acasio Marques, general manager of the equipment, gets the numbers and names by the to lighten dark shadows. the credit for the improvement.
A farewell to Mark Pavelich, the troubled member of the 1980 Miracle Team USA and the popular Ranger, who was one of the faces of Herb Brooks’ Smurfs, who went through tragic circumstances on Thursday. May he find the peace that has eluded him through the last years of his life.
Finally, when they had to make the shape of a hockey parent, they made it in the person of Walter Gretzky. Wayne Gretzky’s father was humble, supportive, understood that youth hockey had to be fun and had a heart as big as his beloved Canada.
He is known as Wally for everyone he befriended and for the masses of children he touched and inspired. He was a role model just as much as number 99.
The passing of Walter Gretzky certainly leaves a hole in the heart of the game, but it will forever be filled more by his spirit of generosity that will live on forever.