PHILADELPHIA — The Campbellization of the NHL Department of Player Safety is complete.
No doubt that while acting as the chief discipline officer, Colin Campbell believed in his heart he was acting in the league’s best interest when he combed through the rule book searching for technicalities in order to grant leniency to miscreants who came before the bar.
Now, his successor, Brendan Shanahan, apparently has adopted the same philosophical approach in dealing with defendants who come before his court after having begun his tenure with a heavy gavel that caught everyone’s attention and suggested victims of senseless aggression on the rink would finally get justice.
The decision not to suspend the Lightning’s Dominic Moore after his head-high shoulder concussed Ruslan Fedotenko at Madison Square Garden on Thursday — because the shoulder knocked the Rangers forward’s stick into his own head — is straight out of the previous script that apparently has reappeared as the NHL’s bible.
Yup, it was the stick, not the shoulder that caused the injury. Nothing in the jurist’s manual about suspending a stick.
I’m fairly certain I saw something similar on “Law & Order” once where a woman was killed when hit by a car after being chased into the highway by a man carrying a gun, but in that case, the car wasn’t found guilty — the guy with the gun was convicted by Jack McCoy (or was it Ben Stone?).
After dipping his toe into the pool of strict justice with eye-opening preseason sentences to easy targets like James Wisniewski and Jody Shelley, Shanahan either found the water too hot or was ordered to back off by the Board of Governors.
The chance Moore’s act was unintentional and accidental is next to nil, given that he had been driven into the wall moments earlier by Fedotenko on the same shift, an act that could have drawn a boarding penalty without much cause for complaint from the Rangers.
Seconds after not getting the call, Moore put Fedotenko down at 3:05 of the third period as the Rangers player moved into a checking posture behind him in the circle while the puck was on another player’s stick.
Only an individual twisting himself into knots looking for coincidence would believe it was. This, by the way, is what it can look like when players police the game themselves, if those who call for vigilante justice are paying attention.
But Shanahan, who arrived flashing a shiny badge as the new sheriff in town, has apparently decided less policing is more. Goodness knows, his decision not to suspend the Flyers’ Zac Rinaldo a week earlier for his admittedly intentional slew-foot of the Devils’ Zach Parise was a message the wild west had returned.
Maybe no harm, only a two-minute foul on Moore. But there was harm. Fedotenko missed the remainder of that game against Tampa Bay, missed yesterday’s game against the Flyers and, you’d have to think, will also miss at least this afternoon’s home game against the Caps as well.
While Moore skates on for the Lightning.
“I’m bewildered that a blatant blindside hit to the jaw of a player nowhere near the puck that knocked him out did not warrant a suspension,” Allan Walsh, Fedotenko’s agent, told Slap Shots via email. “How is this anything other than an intentional reckless hit to the head of an unsuspecting player?”
It’s inscrutable, honestly it is. And while it wasn’t Shanahan who changed out of his suit into a hockey uniform and concussed Fedotenko, it was Shanahan who made an oxymoron out of the Department of Player Safety.
As Brad Richards so eloquently said on Thursday, “It’s us doing it to each other [and] if we want to keep doing it to each other … it’s idiotic.”
I don’t remember where I first read it, maybe on Twitter, but it’s true — you do have to wonder how different the NHL brand of justice would be if the chief disciplinarian were a former player whose career had been ended by a brain injury.
Or maybe the pressures of the institution would eventually Campbellize anyone on the job.
* A week ago Ilya recorded a Kovaltrick with a goal, a pair of assists and one-punch TKO of Brayden Schenn in Philadelphia.
Now, the Devils winger is conducting an online auction for an autographed puck with the proceeds going to benefit the Yaroslavl Family Victims Fund.
Interested bidders should send an email including name, address, phone number and bid to info@puckagency.com by Friday at 5 p.m.
Kovalchuk will present the puck to the winning bidder in a meet-and-greet following a Devils game.
For opinions (even those ranking Mats Sundin ahead of Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg), you must check out Holikonhockey.com, authored by the public and private Bobby Holik.
“Look at me! What are you looking at?” said Tim Thomas.