PITTSBURGH — The five-point concussion protocol adopted this week by the NHL operates on the honor system, with club medical personnel on their own without official oversight in determining whether a player must be removed from a game and then subject to a 15-minute waiting period before being permitted to return, NHL VP Mike Murphy has informed Slap Shots.
The question whether game referees have authority to make such a decision arose immediately following Friday night’s game at the Garden, when Henrik Lundqvist sustained a stiff neck after being slammed to the ice by Montreal’s Benoit Pouliot in a high speed, goal-mouth collision with 3:39 to go that earned the Canadiens’ winger an interference penalty.
Lundqvist was attended to immediately on the ice by Jim Ramsay, the Rangers’ universally renowned trainer, who saw no concussion signals and thus allowed the goaltender to complete the match. Lundqvist underwent testing and received treatment for a stiff neck following the match.
But what if referees Steve Kozari and Chris Lee weren’t as sure as Ramsay that Lundqvist hadn’t been concussed? After the match, Rangers personnel said they didn’t know whether the refs would have had the authority to order the goaltender off the ice.
But now they and every team will know that the officials have no function in this regard.
“The player working with the trainer control that situation. The refs are not involved,” Murphy wrote in an e-mail yesterday morning. “There needs to be concussion-like symptoms for the player to be pulled. Trainers, I’m sure, will err on the side of pulling the player.
“So in the case with Lundqvist he must have shown no symptoms that the trainer observed and Lundqvist must have clearly indicated to the trainer that he was OK.”
Lundqvist indeed said that he had been “clear” the entire time. Now it is clear that the burden for enforcing this protocol falls entirely on club trainers and medical people, not one of whom was consulted prior to the policy being adopted or even alerted to the fact it was about to be put in place.
“Not wanting to change the fabric of the game” sounds so much better than “We see nothing wrong with players being allowed to belt each other in the head if delivered in a north-south direction,” doesn’t it?
The statistic the league released about 44 percent of concussions this season being caused by “legal hits” certainly would seem to lead to the conclusion the definition of “legal hits” is a bit too broad, wouldn’t you think?
Truly, if the speed limit in Manhattan were 60 mph, would the population be reassured by a NYPD announcement that “75 percent of pedestrian fatalities in vehicular accidents occurred with the driver involved obeying the speed limit?”
The families of those concussed in fights must be relieved to know they make up only eight percent of those suffering brain injuries this season.
We don’t question that league and team personnel care about the safety of their players, but using the “Fabric of the Game” card to avoid making the singular change of outlawing all direct blows to the head that is inevitable, is a bit insulting six years after the post-lockout rules dramatically changed its fabric. Intimidation, historically an essential piece of the NHL, was legislated out of the game forever.
A skills competition was introduced to break 65-minute ties in which the ultimate team game is distilled to an event in which as few as six players (two goaltenders and four shooters) can determine the outcome of a match.
Translation: Changing the “fabric of the game” is fine for entertainment purposes, not so fine when it comes to safety issues.
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By all means, Jacques Lemaire has done a brilliant job behind the Devils’ bench and Jack Capuano sure looks as if he can get the most out of the Islanders off his half-season of work, but to cite either as coach of the year candidates is going a bit too far.
That’s especially so given the work by Dan Byslma in Pittsburgh, who somehow has the Penguins in the race for first in the East despite the long-term, twin absences of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and the prior long-term absence of Jordan Staal.
Apparently neither Bruce Boudreau nor Ron Wilson are the bums they were depicted to be through the winter, but don’t worry, Boudreau will have a chance to reassert his claim when the Capitals are in the playoffs.
Even through the Devils’ stunning run that seems to have hit a dead end this weekend, the club’s need for puck-moving, puck-carrying defensemen who can contribute to the offense was as acute as ever. Indeed, even in going 14-2 before losing two straight, the Devils scored two or fewer goals in regulation in 13 of those 16 games, limited to one goal six times. The Devils scored a total of one goal in the defeats to the Senators and Caps.
Which leads to the question, is Zach Parise the chip to use in the offseason to acquire that type of defenseman in a trade?
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