Yumcha

Guessing the Hawks thought the Leaves would lie down and just donate 2 points...

black label

15 game suspension is idiotic, that's punishing the result not the action. Back in the day if someone pulled the pacifist routine Orpik pulled a star player would have been targeted. Thanks to the orpikification of the league it makes sense to go back to that. Had Thornton just taken Crosby out with a knee on knee hit and crippled him he would have only got 5 games for kneeing, maybe less since it would have been a first offense.

That's the message shanny sent out here, next time premeditate and make sure it's a hockey play gone bad.

How many times had a player been grabbed and punched a few times with the glove on in a hockey game? Pretty much every single one yet how many times do we see a guy get knocked out by it on the first jab? Anyone who thinks Thornton's plan was to concuss Orpik with 1 punch is crazy. But that's a 15 game infraction for punching (which is allowed) a defenseless player (which isn't allowed).

Neal kneed a guy in the head who had just been tripped to the ice and was also defenseless at the time. 5 games for a for his 3 suspension in 6 years all for head infractions. Kneeing is never acceptable in the NHL I would assume doing it to a defenseless player would make it a more detestable act. Apparently it isn't.

The code is dead, shanny put the final nail in the coffin. Long live the era of the dirty cheap shot.

Rounder

https://vine.co/v/hQqmIgKw2vW dupuis/kelly slashes. kelly slashed dupuis back twice as hard.

black label

Lol, yeah, after dupuis broke Kelly's leg, Kelly slashed him back. How dare he, premeditated revenge, 15 game suspension.

dom

Stop blaming Shanny people. He's nothing but a puppet who's strings are being pulled from above. Put the blame squarely where it belongs. Gary, the owners and most importantly, the players.

Yumcha

Nice bounce-back win by the Hawks tonight.

Rounder

pens have FIVE starting D men out. going to be an interesting rest of 2013.

Moog-Type-S

Where did all the Shannananban apologists go?!?!

He was going to save the league!!!

Moog-Type-S

That would assume the the Pens actually played defense to begin with.

Yumcha

Meh...my hope at the time was that Shanny would've handed out suspensions with consistency and with lengths that would make players think twice before a head-shot.

I did not think it would be this inconsistent...Case in point is the recent Pens/Bruins debacle. Not sure how Neal only gets 5 games and yet, Thornton (deservedly) gets 15...the latter's hit on Marchand was just as brutal IMO.

Say it again: LOVE hockey but it is sad to watch such stupidity/incompetence regularly from its leadership...

Yumcha

Deryk Engelland's lovely hit against Detroit should get him some games off...Again, WTF is with this team and their chippy play?

Moog-Type-S

If you understood back then, what I think you are beginning to understand now, that you cannot police the game from the outside (See the train wreck experiemnt of the Instigator Rule) you would have seen this coming a long way off.

Shannananban is a powerless tool of The Count, and the NHLPA.
He is a false front, window dressing for the league to make it seem like they are tough on cheap shot violence......meanwhile the NHLPA will fight tooth and nail to keep all their players on the ice regardless of what kind of B.S. they do. The Count knows nothing of the game and thinks The Code is "barbaric" and out of touch, so he served up his Instigator Rule, and thus opened the flood gate for cheap shot artists that never have to answer the bell for their gutless actions.

This is why the Bruins "exploded" after cheap shot after cheap shot from the Penguins. Penguins have a rep for doing this again and again for years and never having to answer for it. It reached breaking point for the Bruins and we saw what we saw.

How that scumbag Neal only got 5 games for cheap shot kneeing a player in the head is mind numbing. Back before the Instigator rule, a coward like Neal would never had done that.....he would have had to answer for that, and Neal knows he does not want to answer for it....therefore he would not pull off that kind of

...but in today's NHL.....anything goes. It's disturbing the lack of respect for fellow players in the game today. Look at that piece of Torres...he takes guys heads off, and never answers for it. Some would say wait a minute!! He did answer for it, he's not playing.....yea......after he took out how many players exactly Back in the day Torres wouldn't need to get suspended so many times, as he would have had his clocked cleaned enough to where he wouldn't be a "repeat offender".





.......5 games for Neal, and 15 for Thornton........Madness!

Yumcha

Will probably need the Pens fans to comment here but is Pittsburgh's strategy of being so chippy so that no one touches Sid or Malkin?

black label

I think it's a bad strategy, every cheap shot they take and don't have to answer for lead Crosby and Malkin closer to a season ending injury. If players won't man up and defend their actions, the next recourse is cheap shot at their star players.

dom

But will simply re-instating the instigator rule solve all of these problems?

I honestly don't know the answer to that. I suspect no, because the lack of respect amongst players is simply too big now. Lets start fining teams and removing Cap dollars for next season. Then we'll see how big a role the goons play in today's NHL.

Yumcha

I dunno...I would've hoped that if the NHL was intelligent enough to do so, setting a mandatory 20-game ban for any headshot and then after 3 strikes, out for the year would've worked well.



Not sure why this has to be so complicated.

Moog-Type-S

There is no Catch-all solution, however getting rid of the instigator rule will dramatically cut back on the cheap shot nonsense.

The current situation has players NOT having to answer on the ice, and apparently (thanks to the NHLPA) off the ice either.

Players being held accountable on the ice by their peers will change things dramatically.....and it will change the dis-respect of other players safety within the league that is running rampant right now.

Player will think long and hard before doing something stupid.

Yumcha

Well, this is just a smattering of contradictions between the League office, players, and the clubs...

So, we are correct in saying that the League wants fighting gone, right? Meanwhile, the players and some clubs want fighting kept around. So, if you have 2 contradicting goals, how can they achieve anything in the first place? This is is so screwed up.



Therefore, while this issue is being spun around, wouldn't a set template of suspensions (instead of just throwing a dice and randomly giving games out) be the better process? Again, back to Neal and his ridiculous 5 gamer for Muay-Thai-ing Marchand versus Thornton getting 15...? If Thornton's is heinous enoguh to get 15, Neal should be at LEAST 10.

dom

I don't think the league (Gary) wants fighting gone. If they did, it could have easily been removed since hockey is the only sport on earth that still allows fighting.

Now dirty plays, do they want those gone? different conversation IMO.

black label

Thorny's going to appeal, my guess is they drop it to 8 games. I would think they don't want the to go to phase 2 of the appeals process because the 3rd party arbitrator may make a mockery of the department of player safety.

Moog-Type-S

When did the league ever say they wanted to abolish fighting?!?!?

...and a set template for suspensions would be worse than Shanannaban.
I could see an elbow that was not going to the head, but victim ducked at the last minute and took elbow to the head....and Boom....player suspended for 10 games under some dumbass set template...because of some B.S. zero tolerance hit to the head nonsense.

No thanks!!

It's really simple, let the players police themselves, and a lot of the B.S. cheap shots will go away....not all of them, because that can never happen, but a vast majority of them. If you got the b@lls to pull off a James Neal knee to the head...go for it.....but be prepared to pay the piper for your gutless cheap shot.

No set template nonsense that will be debatable and have a ton of pissed off GM's, owners and fans....just simple "Code" of conduct on the ice by the players.


There's always gonna be cheap shot artists in hockey (and in all sports)...but at least with the removal of the instigator rule, when the cheap shot is done, the player is gonna pay....unlike now where they skate away, turtle, or just puss-out on a fight when they know they got it coming.

Yumcha

Okay...isn't it a known fact that the League wants to abolish fighting to make it more "accessible" to US fans?

I thought it was pretty much admitted to by Gary et al.




As for your scenario, I would suggest that the template-automatic-set-games is in place but with allowances for review. So, if the said victim did accidentally run his head into an elbow, then maybe the 20 game ban does not apply?

What I'm getting at is that if they make the punishment sizable enough, the creeps who have zero respect in the game will think twice before sending someone to next year with a cheapshot.

Moog-Type-S

As for fighting....nope. Never heard of what you are talking aboot.
It's always teh peeps that don't care for the fisticuffs.

What you are saying is essentially what Shananananban does now.
Reviews it, then makes a call. Meh...it's a train wreck.
You get all this "intent" non sense, and angle of attack, did player see it coming, did they move, where was the puck....all in slow-mo.

There is no need for monday morning quarterbacking on what was going on.
Every time they do that "review" they always piss off someone...and most of the time Shannanaban gets it wrong.

...and "every" hit to the head starts out with 5 games, or 10 games
So I can pull a Torres on Hossa, and only get 5 or 10 games...and in another instance a guy's elbow hits a guys head because the guy moved into it, and Shanananban thinks it was an elbow to the head, and that guy gets 5 or 10 games?!? Same as Torres?!?!?

Nonsense.

It's pure craptastic. No Thanks!

Moog-Type-S

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/curr...8868--nhl.html

NHL says no appetite to change fighting rules as debate rages on
http://globalnews.ca/news/878488/can...bate-rages-on/

dom

Pengoons

dom

Ya yummy I don't think there's any appetite in the league office to get rid of fighting. Quite the opposite actually.

black label

They won't settle down until teams systematically start taking dangerous runs at Malkin and Crosby. When those 2 are in fear of their own safety from cheap hits they may request that their team mates tone down the dirty play. I don't mean hard 100% legal hits either, they need to be the constant target of borderline hits so they understand what the problem is.

dom

And the Pengoons continue to live up to their reputation. Shanaban may as we'll move to Pittsburgh.

dom

Unfortunately you're probably right.

Yumcha

Okay boys...I stand corrected. Thanks for the clarification. Just was under the impression that the League was trying to abolish fighting (as in their ultimate goal).

dom

Watching Part 1 of 24/7. Had to fast forward through all the douchy Alfredsson parts, almost lost my dinner.

Yumcha

@ "Pengoons"...

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

too late...

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Pens beat the leaf blowers with 5 of their top 6 D-men out and 2 of their top 6 forwards

Must be all that "chippy" play

dom

No, its because the Leaves are terrible.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Dion's a douche, and Kadri should have a spot on the olympic diving team, he really needed to change his tampon last night.

Yumcha

The irony here is that the Pengoon-haters would say the same about Sid...

dom

Are you talking about the tripping call with a couple of minutes left? If so, that WAS a clear trip. Take off your Pengoon glasses.

Can't argue with Dion being a douche. But is his man closet ever nice.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

No, was referring to earlier in the game, every time someone got within 3 feet of Kadri, he went down like he got shot

Yumcha

BTW, dom...you're not commenting on Bortuzzo's lovely hit to the head on D'Amigo?