EDMONTON, Alberta — The area of inconsistency undermining the NHL isn’t supplementary discipline as applied by VP Brendan Shanahan, but rather initial discipline as determined by the league’s referees.
Seriously, one night Ryan Callahan is called for goaltender interference on the Island for kind of brushing against Evgeni Nabokov on a play going nowhere, but a few nights later nothing is called against the Penguins’ Matt Cooke in Winnipeg for knocking aside Ondrej Pavelec while a goal is being scored by Zbynek Michalek.
What’s the standard?
One night, Brandon Prust is called for boarding in Vancouver for having the Canucks’ Andrew Alberts fall down into him while finishing a check at the slightest touch.
But a couple of nights later, Cory Sarich gets away scot-free in Calgary for nailing Brad Richards from behind in front of the Rangers’ bench — not far, coincidentally, from the spot on the ice where Curtis Glencross concussed Chris Drury a couple of years ago.
What’s the standard?
The game continues to get faster. The NHL’s referees have not kept up.
Question: Isn’t it true the reason the league changed the on-ice penalty for a hit to the head from a major to a minor is the lawmakers recognized referees would be more likely to make the call if the sentence were for 2 minutes instead of a potentially game-altering 5 minutes?
Answer: Why yes it is, Slap Shots.
The fear that stringent application of a head-shot rule would change the game is baseless. No player in NHL history has ever needed to hit an opponent in the head to finish a check or to prevent a play from being made.
But the new guideline regarding boarding, also adopted to protect players against brain injuries by being slammed viciously into the glass or dasher from behind, will change the game drastically if the on-ice officials either don’t understand the rule or don’t know what they’re seeing.
Players such as Prust — actually, let’s make that 90 percent of the forwards in the league — must finish their checks if they want to continue to get ice time, which translates into staying in the NHL.
These players cannot turn away. If legal checks are interpreted as boarding because an opponent falls down into the boards, then defensemen with forwards on their backs will learn how to dive, and the game will change for the worse.
Sometimes a guy going back for the puck is going to get hammered. That happens to be part of it. That has to be part of it.
We’re not in the camp of Brooks Laich, the pro’s pro in Washington who says he “really [doesn’t] care about that awareness stuff” regarding concussions.
But he’s correct in saying there are inherent dangers in playing the game — the only one, by the way, where players can’t escape by going out of bounds.
Somehow, while the league is focusing on boarding and hits to the head, Rule 43.1 and Rule 43. 2 have all but been ignored.
What are 43.1 and 43.2? Well, we would be glad to remind you and referees Gord Dwyer and Brad Meier, neither of whom apparently knew in Calgary on Thursday.
“A check from behind is a check delivered on a player who is not aware of the impending hit, therefore unable to protect or defend himself, and contact is made on the back part of the body,” 43.1 reads.
“When a player intentionally turns his body to create contact with his back, no penalty shall be assessed.”
Rule 43.2: “There is a provision for a minor penalty for checking from behind.”
When is the last time anyone can remember checking from behind being called in open ice?
Anyone? Class? McCreary? Bueller?
Through the first three weeks, Shanahan has been about as consistent as possible in his rulings. His example, unfortunately, has not been followed by the league referees, whose work seems to grow more uneven by the year.
So the Devils have found a unique way to ensure Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk are regarded as separate but equal left-wing stars in the galaxy.
Have Kovalchuk’s center, Jacob Josefson, get hurt just as Parise’s pivot, Travis Zajac, was earlier.
Well, guess this explosive start means Phil Kessel won’t get chosen last again at the All-Star Game.
Or maybe not.