To all my readers, I want to apologize for the terrible job I did at picking the first round matchups. It is a good thing that I didn’t make predictions for all of the series, or I would probably really be in trouble. I didn’t see the effort and determination of the Los Angeles Kings coming, as they are up 3-0 and going for the sweep, and I also didn’t think that the Flyers would be so dominate against Sid the Kid and Evgeni Malkin. My only pick that holds true is Nashville to beat Detroit. So what I am 1 for 3, in baseball that gets you in the Hall of Fame!
But I digress. Lets get to the real story of this years NHL playoffs: the hits, fights, and subsequent suspensions that seem to be happening in every series on a nightly basis. Usually playoff hockey is more intense then the regular season because guys want it more when the playoffs arrive, knowing they are so close to reaching the ultimate dream, winning the Stanley Cup. But this year, most of the games look like wrestling matches. Its like every team believes the old saying, If you cant beat ’em, beat ’em. I am waiting for The Rock to dress for Pittsburgh and start laying the Rock Bottom on the Flyers, because it seems to be the only way Pittsburgh believes they can beat Philly.
Where did it all start? Obviously in the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia series there is bad blood between the two teams that goes back for decades, but for the most part there are not any big “rivals” playing each other. A couple of series (San Jose vs. St. Louis) and (Detroit vs. Nashville) feature older veteran teams against the young guns of the league, and perhaps the violence stems from younger guys trying to prove they are better then veterans who have been there before.
My theory is that it all goes back to the defending Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins. In last year’s playoffs, they showed that in order to win it all, you have to be willing to come together as a team, and stand up for one another in good times and bad. They were not afraid to muck it up and get teams off of their game, and they would take advantage when teams couldn’t keep up late in games. I would even argue at times they probably were a little bit dirty and cheap, but hey, if you get away with it and your winning do what you want. I think this year many teams are trying to play in the Boston mold. Even teams who are usually not known for their toughness (Washinton Capitals, Phoenix Coyotes) are seeing their players suspended for dirty hits during games.
The biggest example of this is Nicklas Backstrom’s crosscheck on Rich Peverley at the end of game three. Backstrom is arguably one of the most skilled players in the game, not usually known for his dirty play. He received a match penalty for intent to injure which carries with it an automatic one game suspension.
So far this post season the NHL has suspended 8 different players, and 5 of these players have received multiple game suspensions (Check out the player by player list). Many of the hits that have driven the NHL to suspend players have resulted in injuries to the person being hit, but should they be getting more games just because they hurt someone? In my opinion a hit to the head is a hit to the head, and all hits should be punished equally. If the NHL wants to stop these plays, they need to give out bigger punishments to all parties, not based on whether or not someone is injured.
Ryan Rudnansky in an article for The Bleacher Report, says that Brendan Shanahan, disciplinarian of the NHL, is to blame, not the in-game referees:
He’s the guy who has steadily become more lax since taking the job over a year ago. When you are basically giving players free rein to do as they wish without adequate consequence, in a playoff atmosphere, there is really nothing refs can do at that point.
I tend to agree with Rudnansky, if he laid down the law a little harder on Shea Weber’s hit on Henrik Zetterberg, it may have deterred players in other series from thinking with their fists first.
We also have to remember that there are two sides to every coin. The violence in this years playoffs has done one thing the NHL Playoffs have not been able to do in recent years, draw huge television ratings. Ratings for some games are the highest they have been since before the NHL moved to NBC networks. So it begs the question, are ratings more important than players’ health, and is the violence good for the game? I personally think that the NHL is almost sitting back knowing that they are getting paid and letting this stuff happen. I want to see players play hard and stick up for each other, but there has to be a time and a place, and the guys that get involved should be the guys who are usually involved. Guys like Sidney Crosby, Backstrom, and other skilled players should stick to what they do best, scoring points.
As the playoffs move on it will be interesting to see if things start calming down, or if they escalate even more, and for the rest of this postseason it looks like Shanahan will have his hands full.
Dangle Sauce 