We have all seen this a hundred times by now. What do you think. Has the NHL failed yet again by not handing out suplementary discipline to Zdeno Chara?
My Thoughts: I base this on a life time of hockey experince playing since 1962 and coaching for the past 17 years at competitive levels. Players who played on my teams now play in the NCAA and one in the NHL. I feel I am as qualified as any talking head on TV.
My opinion is that first this way a penalty for interference at the lowest level of the rules, no question. The penalty resulted in an injury so a major and a game misconduct, the 100% proper call by the game official. That's all he can do according to the rule book.
The NHL has set a proceedure for supplementary discipline in cases where injury occurs and chose none in this case. I believe that Chara directed Pacioretty into the upright and violently forearmed his head into it as a finishing blow. I do not think Chara expected to hurt the player so much but to my eye and my understanding of that player and my understanding of how this game is played it was 100% intentional.
I would have expected a 2 game suspension.
Thank God Max Pacioretty is actually feeling pretty good tonight, he just gave a interview over the phone and said so himself.
-- Edited by 73SC on Wednesday 9th of March 2011 10:44:19 PM
Intent is always pretty tough to rule on. I don't find him a dirty player at all like Pronger. I don't think he has even averaged 20 penalty minutes a year in his career in the NHL. But it seems these 2 have had a little going on and when the occasion arises you can be sure the memory is twigged and you give him that extra shot. I think it was intentional also. I too think a couple games would have been in order but man Montreal has to change those stupid stantions before somebody else gets clipped. They have ways now where the glass and boards are so much more forgiving.
From a defenseman's point of view, Chara tried to play the puck and then finish the check. If the check would have taken place in some other spot around the rink, I have my doubts that this discussion would be taking place. I just don't see the intent to injure in this case. Interference may be the right call because the puck was already poked ahead of both players but Chara never took any extra strides to make the body check. There was a bit of an extra shove with his elbow but it still doesn't look like intent to injure.
Whenever there is a foot race for the puck, the player closest to the boards has to assume that there is a body check coming.....at least that's how it was when I played. Granted, the rules have changed somewhat since I played competitive hockey.
This was not intent to injure like what we have seen in the past from others like Todd Bertuzzi or Marty McSorely.
-- Edited by 67SD396 on Thursday 10th of March 2011 05:38:06 AM
a low down dirty play, by a dirty player. He knew exactly what his elbow was going to push into the extension. He should be watching until next season. Just my 2 cents.
a low down dirty play, by a dirty player. He knew exactly what his elbow was going to push into the extension. He should be watching until next season. Just my 2 cents.
I couldn't agree more. I just read a blog that said Chara is not know to be a "dirty" player. Are you kidding me? Anyone who has watched this guy in his 13 NHL seasons knows otherwise. ...2 more cents added.
I agree with the statement made over and over "It won't stop until someone gets killed" IMO, the aggressors should be suspended for the length of time the victim is out. That means Big Bert should not be playing any more either. Players have lost respect for their fellow players. I used to be an avid hockey fan, also played a number of years at left wing. Now, I prefer to watch junior hockey, never watch NHL anymore.
As a defenceman I was taught if the puck gets by you the player better not. They would shoot it past you and I'd slow them up so my teamate could get to it first. Hockey rinks all over have that stupid one piece of glass and and open door. Many times I've seen a player go into a open door and get wrapped around the glass. I think the sport is the same as years ago, but now we have cameras everywhere showing these hits. Plus the play is alot faster. I think the gear has gotten so damm good that you think you can't get hurt or hurt another player.
Sad but necessary. Air Canada may withdraw sponsorship, next thing another corporation will follow suit and everything could unravel. The sooner Bettman goes, the better.
The game will never change as long as there are pinkos like don cherry who say its part of the game or if your apussy go sit in the stands. Intent is hard to prove but these guys are pros and they can make a hit look unintentional. These guys are aware of where they are on the ice and I'm sure chara knew where the post was. If the league can't police itself then maybe someone outside the game should.
I haven't heard what Don Cherry thinks yet, but it will be interesting to hear from him. I honestly don't think he will say this is part of the game. He played pugilist hockey back in the day in the AHL but even at that there was a mutual respect for a person's well being.
I'll throw in my 2 cents (wth!) even though i'm not an NHL hockey fan... i don't like the game, can't stand the dump and chase style and the trap... I much prefer Olympic hockey. I'm also not a big fan of Cherry, i think he's an idiot and his attitude hurts the skill portion of the game.
I'm surprised that a post like that along the boards doesnt have a lot of padding on it... you wouldn't see football goal post left exposed like that, and hockey is a much faster game.
It sure looks like Chara added the extra head push into the pipe at the end, would he have added the same head rub along the regular glass? who knows? to me that's the difference between it being deliberate or not...
In terms of Bertuzzi, i think he's getting an unexpected unlucky deal based on the outcome of the fall... it's the chances you take when you hit someone, but the outcome is far more extreme than what he did... this was no stick to the head, much worse happens almost every game, just luckily the people get up...
When i was school someone killed another kid at a local high school with one well placed punch ...think about how many high school fights there have been over time, and one that only had one punch thrown results in someones death...
...From a defenseman's point of view, Chara tried to play the puck and then finish the check. If the check would have taken place in some other spot around the rink, I have my doubts that this discussion would be taking place....
And I have to go with him. I just don't see the intent here, Ray.
Look at the photo in the sports section. Chara drives his head into the turnbuckle. Period. Played hockey at an elete level, coaching hockey foe a few years, It was a deliberate intent to injure. Chara knew exactly what he was doing. I hope Chara gets killed in a car crash, as hes a pig, 22 year old kid with a broken neck due to a big thug/bully.
I was going to respond to JetFan but Mike said what I was thinking, well maybe not exactly what I was thinking but the part about intent anyway.
There is only one reason anyone angles a player to the players bench area in any rink and that reason is to bend him in half, and if things line up well enough you also put him over. I'm not saying Chara expected to break the kid's back and concuss him so badly, but he knew where he was. he knew where he was taking him and that there were going to be painful results.
As far the point about if this happened anywhere else on the rink there would be no dicsussion about this, I agree. Pacioretty's head would have been slammed into the glass by Chara's forearm and the suspension would have been swift and sure.
Let's not forget that Pacioretty did not have the puck, in fact the puck was almost at the Brunin's goal line when the hit occured. Pacioretty would have had no reason to expect to be hit like that when he didn't even have the puck so he was defense less against a careless blantant foul.
I have watched this over and over... My take is that Pacioretty tries to skate past Chara and turns his back to the boards to sneak by. By putting himself in this position, his shoulders bend backwards over the boards because his butt has nowhere else to go and places his head in line with the stantion in the glass. If he had not of twisted and kept his shoulders perpendicular to the boards then he would not have hit his head.
In looking at this film, I think that if Chara had wanted to piledrive into the boards, he would have and could have but he didn't. It seems to me that Chara wasn't even really looking at Pacioretty and was starting look down ice for the puck. I don't disagree that there was an interference penalty on the play and that issuing a major for the injury was unwarranted but I don't the intention to wail his head into the stantion was there.
Remember when Mark Howe got stuck in the ribs by the old Art Ross style nets after being cross checked to the ice? Another case of a terrible injury that happened to to unfortunate timing. How about when Steve Tuttle sliced Clint Malarchuck's neck? He was wrestling with a defenseman in front of the net when that happened.
Hoping someone dies? That seems a little harsh.
That's my opinion.
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"Things work out best for the people who make the best of the way things work out." - Art Linkletter
Malarchuck was a fluke accident, Chara intended to hut Pacs. Maybe he didn't want to break his neck, but hurt him? Absolutley. Someone is going to die on the ice if they don't get rid of the instigator rule. I'd rather Chara than some young kid living the dream. I stand by my opinion.
Malarchuck was a fluke accident, Chara intended to hut Pacs. Maybe he didn't want to break his neck, but hurt him? Absolutley. Someone is going to die on the ice if they don't get rid of the instigator rule. I'd rather Chara than some young kid living the dream. I stand by my opinion.
There is no way you or the courts can prove intent. The NHL has to fix that side of the rink or have a heavy penalty for checking to the boards from blue line to blue line on that side of the rink. I say glass it all in and no more problem. A coaches nightmare getting players on and off the ice for a while, but both sides will have that problem
I watched the Leafs play at ACC tonight. There are six uprights exposed just like that one in the Bell Centre. They even showed a close up of them to show watchers the padding. All this talk about Bell Centre being unsafe , I don't get it, there are six places in the ACC this could happen.
I just reviewed the film and there are four exposed uprights in the Bell Centre, two less than in Toronto ACC, so that argument about Bell Centre being unsafe is Bull.
And by the way there were 15.8 seconds left in the period when Chara accidently drove Pacioretty into that post.
As far as proving intent, who is suggesting this? Chara hit him violently so he is responsible period. I'm certainly not saying anything other than suspend the guy for two games or so.
This league is a gong show, they suspended Gilles for 9 games last week and the films show the guy basically did nothing, Kubina got 2 games for nothing last night and a kid is carried out on a stretcher and Bettman shrugs his shoulders. Komisarek pulled a stupid hit from behind tonight on Carcillo, bad hit, we'll see if anything happens.
And while I'm on a rant let's not forget Sidney Crosby absobing a blindside hit from Steckel that went undetected and unreviewed. Steckel is remorseful but that is pure Bull too. If you say it enough times, it was an accident, it was an accident pretty soon you believe it.
-- Edited by 73SC on Thursday 10th of March 2011 11:27:09 PM
