Discussion: NHL Hits and Suspensions

Nate Wells: Not enough consistency, although this has been a major problem for Colin Campbell and the NHL in the past. The league needs to clean up the grey area.

Mike Rogers: The NHL is completely inconsistent in not just what gets dubbed as suspension-worthy, but also as to how severe they should dole out the punishments. Until the NHL shows a concerted effort to take hits to the head out of the league (as much as it can, given it's a collision sport), and become more consistent, nothing fruitful will come of it.

Tim Daily: My problem with NHL suspensions is that they've always seemed results oriented. I understand that it's tough to judge whether a guy seriously intended to hurt somebody. There have been clear cases in the past where a guy has gotten a ridiculous amount of games just because the hit he delivered ended up seriously hurting somebody, and I understand that. Sure we need to punish the severe hits but a lot of times we miss punishing players that dole out severely dangerous hits just because they didn't result in injury.

Nate: I agree with that. Even something like a fine after the fact [a la the NFL] would be a good deterrent and give the league a better idea who the real "repeat offenders" are.

Dan Husko: Tim - the NHL openly admits that whether the player is hurt or not goes into disciplinary decisions.

Tim: Yeah. I'm not saying it shouldn't. In a fast paced game like hockey it's often tough to make distinctions between whether or not a guy intended to do anything...but in today's age of high definition video, the NHL is more equipped than ever to make good decisions on suspension-worthy plays. I'd like to see the league do that and get better at issuing punishment.

Dara Heaps: The NHL really has to make an effort to clean up the game. Maybe something like a suspension based on the hit and if there is an injury (like the Richards hit on Booth), a fine reguardless if the hit was legal. If there's a clean hit but the guy ends up injured like Booth, maybe there should be a fine. Its not like these players can't afford it and the money would go to the players assistance fund.

Mike: I don't see how a $10,000 fine is much of a detriment as guys still hit high in the NFL. And given the NHL's track record with punishments, them identifying "repeat offenders" is pretty, shall we say, suspect.

Nate: It's true that players will make borderline dirty hits in the NHL barring any drastic action like placing the stop sign on back of their jerseys like Pee-Wees. However, the number of repeat offenders go down [for on-field hits - off-field activities is a different story]. It's the same thing with suspensions - you don't see many people getting suspended for the same thing multiple times.

Mike: You don't see many people getting suspended in the NHL, period. Let alone suspended for the same thing multiple times. The fact that the NHL continually lets guys like Denis Gauthier run wild on the ice year in, year out is a testament to the joke of a job that Colin Campbell has been doing. I don't expect that to change anytime soon, either.

Nate: No I agree with that, which as I said earlier is one of the reasons why there is such a large grey area of questionable hits and questionable suspensions/non-suspensions.

Eric Kveton: There's no excuse for the NHL's missing the boat on the punishment of head shots. But in defense of the NHL, it's definitely tricky to standardize some of the more borderline hits. We saw it with the Scuderi and Ott hip checks, which obviously weren't head shots but both could be considered dangerous. Do you punish a guy for hitting a couple inches lower than he is supposed to (or arguably meant to)? And yes, Ott is an infamous "repeat offender."

But then Colin Campbell makes Tim's point for him:
"Scuderi went really low and I felt it was a clip," Campbell said Hockey Night in Canada Radio.
"Fortunately, he didn't injure the guy. He did hurt him on the play, as far as receiving a cut. But he came back in the game, Chimera, so I didn't think it was a fair play and we fined him."

That's ridiculous.

Andrew Harvey: I'd like the players to police themselves but they seemingly only care to retaliate on clean hits. I still dont have a real problem with hits to the head as long as the guy stays on his feet and uses shoulder. Once the forearm is up (like the Wisniewski hit) Im all for suspensions.

Dan: I still dont have as much of a problem with the Wisniewski hit as I do the Richards or Ladd hits. Standing guys up at the blue line like that happens a lot. Seems like it wasn't a hit aimed for the head. Regardless, he made contact with the head with a forearm, so he deserved a couple games.

I still don't see how that's more dangerous than two guys putting so much force into high hits that they leave their feet after contact. Personally I'd probably prefer to be hit by a forearm rather than a guy skating full speed and putting all 200 lbs behind one of his shoulders. There's also scientific proof that blindsiding someone and surprising him with a head hit is a lot more dangerous and more likely to produce a serious concussion.

Regardless, whether its a forearm, shoulder, or elbow, the head should be off limits. Complain about wimping the game, but there's enough history of guy's having long term effects from head injuries to warrant this change. Obviously, you'll never take all concussions out of the game since they do occur on clean hits (Willie Mitchell on Toews was a great, clean hit). I also think it says a lot that a guy like Keith Primeau came out heavily in favor of outlawing these types of hits.

John Cullen: The problem you end up with when you begin to try and limit hits to the head is that you put another huge amount of pressure on referees to make the right call every time, and we saw how well that went with the obstruction calls. For example, what do you do if a guy appears to be lining up to hit a guy in the head but misses? In a close game, if a guy turns his head into the hit a la David Booth, do you still call it? And I would find the entire thing really ironic if they allow fighting(which is punching a guy in the face) but outlaw hitting guys to the head.

It's hockey and these guys are physical specimens, they hit to hurt, they've all been taught that way, and guys who are unwilling to play physical hockey often see a decrease in ice-time, which is why stars are now expected to have that physical edge to their game and you see "faces of the game" like Ovechkin and Crosby start to take liberties. Gretzky never hit anyone in his life and Lemieux certainly didn't go out of his way either because they didn't have to, but the game has changed significantly since then and there's very few guys getting top minutes who are unwilling to give a hit and be physical.

I agree with Harv, Don Cherry, and a slew of others that the game has to start policing itself. This trend of fighting guys on clean hits is getting ridiculous and is absolutely not at all in the nature of the game. Can the instigator penalty (which is still one of the worst rule-changes the NHL has ever made) and start holding guys accountable. Guys didn't wear helmets 25-30 years ago and there were very few guys coming out of that era with concussion issues, so why now? I can guarantee that if Derek Boogaard is going to beat the piss out of you for hitting a guy on his team, you'd think twice about doing it as opposed to a fine for some pocket change.