Larry Brooks

Larry Brooks

NHL

Therrien ‘threat’ demands review

The NHL, which came up small in its response to Brandon Prust’s jaw-breaking late hit on Derek Stepan in Game 3 with a sentence that would allow No. 8 to return to this series if the Canadiens can win one of the next two games, now must investigate Montreal again, and specifically coach Michel Therrien.

It is up to the league — and this would fall under the province of the commissioner — to determine whether Therrien essentially placed a bounty on Derick Brassard, the Rangers’ center who will return for Sunday’s Game 4 after missing all but the first 3:05 of the series, sidelined thereafter with an upper-body injury he sustained on a blind-side hit from defenseman Mike Weaver.

What exactly did Therrien mean, and what message was the coach attempting to send to his players, or anyone else, by stating: “We expect Derick Brassard to play and we know exactly where he’s injured. Hockey is a small world…”?

It was an outrageously irresponsible statement from an adult in a position of responsibility — at worst a threat, a threat to re-injure. If anything happens to Brassard now, what else would anyone think?

Gary Bettman must conduct a review of the Montreal coach’s conduct.

Similarly, Daniel Carcillo and the NHLPA are absolutely correct in challenging and appealing the automatic 10-game sentence he received for allegedly violating Rule 40.3 Section II, Physical Abuse of Officials.

There is no disputing that Carcillo got physical with linesman Scott Driscoll. But the incident was provoked by Driscoll, who immediately became physically aggressive with Carcillo when the Rangers’ forward hovered near the scene of a fight between Derek Dorsett and Prust.

Carcillo may or may not have been aware that he had been penalized for a charge on Prust that immediately preceded the fight. If he knew, he should have gone straight to the box. If he didn’t know, he had no business moving so close to the action, where he loomed as a potential third-man-in.

Driscoll didn’t appear to instruct Carcillo to move or go to the box before he grabbed the player and began to shove him away from the scene toward the penalty box. Carcillo then chopped the linesman with his stick.

Carcillo did nothing to be proud of and the act is indefensible, but perhaps mitigated by physical provocation. Certainly, it is worth an appeal and an audience with the commissioner.


This was business as unusual as conducted by the Islanders and general manager Garth Snow, which is to say shrewd, understated and worthy of unqualified accolades.

Jaroslav HalakAP
For the Brooklyn-bound franchise got out in front in the great goalie scramble that’s likely to be a featured part of the summer by signing pending free agent Jaroslav Halak to a fair-market, four-year contract worth an annual $4.5 million cap hit.

Snow moved alertly to obtain the dependable Halak’s rights from the Caps in exchange for a fourth-round pick and then proceeded with all deliberate speed to get the 29-year-old under contract before time and leverage would become issues.

And in doing so, the one-time NHL goaltender who traded his illegal padding for business suits has solved an Islander problem area and has given his team a solid foundation in the game’s most important position.

Evgeni Nabokov, a pending unrestricted free agent who could conceivably return to the club as a back-up, had his moments as the Islanders’ No. 1 (or, No. 20), no doubt about that. But while the netminder was capable of brilliance, he was also erratic, the latter a quality that often would undermine the effort in front of him.

Halak himself is more than capable of excellence, as he demonstrated in both Montreal—check out Rounds 1 and 2 of the 2010 playoffs in which he backstopped and backboned the Habs to upset victories over Alex Ovechkin’s Caps and Sidney Crosby’s Penguins when Ovechkin was Ovechkin and Crosby was Crosby—and St. Louis.

But Halak is also reliable, an essential attribute when playing behind a defense, if not a team, that tends to be skittish. Over the last three seasons, the Czech native has the fourth-best save pct. in the NHL among goaltenders who have appeared in at least 100 games, his .921 trailing only Tuukka Rask’s .928, Cory Schneider’s .928 and Henrik Lundqvist’s .925. Not too shabby.

The Islanders do have some ingredients here. Snow does need to stabilize the defense and the organization that appears to be in some sort of ownership limbo as Charles Wang does his tease act needs to mature in a hurry, but acquiring a stabilizing influence in nets is never a bad way to go into the season, or the summer.


So let’s see: Ray Shero, as general manager of the Penguins, acquired Chris Kunitz from Anaheim in exchange for Ryan Whitney and he got both James Neal and Matt Niskanen from Dallas in a trade for Alex Goligoski.

Sidney Crosby skates off as the Rangers celebrate an early Game 7 goal in their divisional final series.Paul J. Bereswill
Yet there was co-owner Ron Burkle whining last week about a trade in which Shero sent Mark Letestu to Columbus for a fourth-round draft pick and he was lamenting the loss of Ben Lovejoy to the Ducks.

As if anyone in the world other than an individual seeking to rationalize Shero’s dismissal would suggest that the Penguins’ failure to win a fourth game against the Rangers was in any way linked to the absence of the second (or third) tier 30-year-old defenseman.

Look, everyone is fair game, even a GM who has had Shero’s success. The Penguins haven’t won since 2009, haven’t even gotten out of the east in five years. But Burkle and co-owner Mario Lemieux made it seem as though they had something personal against Shero in an interview marked by an undertone of bitterness they gave to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

Actually, the inference I drew is that ownership — make that Lemieux – wants to have far greater input into hockey decisions than Shero permitted.

That is ownership’s right. But if Lemieux, Burkle and the yet to be hired incoming GM believe that Letestu and Lovejoy were the missing pieces — when indeed Neal was MIA the entire Rangers’ series except for when he was hacking at Lundqvist after the whistle and indeed Crosby was Sidney Lite for all but Games 2 and 3 — then the east has little to fear from Pittsburgh.

So the Penguins are seeking an infusion of young talent. And Snow has made it known that the Islanders are willing to deal the fifth-overall pick in next month’s draft.

And Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang’s no-move/no-trade clauses do not kick in until July 1 on a contract that runs through 2021-22 at a cap hit of $7.2 Million per.

Perhaps a place to start for both franchises.


Kevin Pollock’s failure to call a penalty against Prust for his hit on Stepan should merit the referee’s expulsion for the remainder of the playoffs.

This questionable hit from Brandon Prust broke Derek Stepan’s jaw.Paul J. Bereswill
It is not that Pollock didn’t see it. He did. As The Post first reported, the official told Brad Richards immediately following the play, “It was a clean hit.”

There should be consequences for such gross ineptitude. But then, the NHL’s officiating department is overseen by Stephen Walkom, the former referee who missed — or thought “clean”— the Raffi Torres headshot that concussed Marian Hossa during the 2012 playoffs. That egregious error was rewarded first by an assignment to a Game 7 of a different series and then promotion to a league vice presidency.

The NHL: where players who fail are sent down, coaches who fail are fired and referees who fail are promoted.