Islanders’ GM Garth Snow does not agree with the 10-game suspension that NHL handed down to Trevor Gillies on Friday. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even necessarily think the hit Gillies put on the Wild’s Cal Clutterbuck during Wednesday’s 4-1 win was a penalty.
“From the play, the way I saw it develop, there was a hit form behind on [Islanders’ rookie Justin] DiBenedetto by the Minnesota player,” Snow said on Saturday before the Islanders’ 5-2 victory over the Blues at the Coliseum. “Then Trevor comes over and tries to finish his check. The first point of contact was shoulder-to-shoulder, it was not a hit from behind by any means.”
The play occurred 2:23 into the second period, on Gillies’ fourth shift of the game. It was his first game back from a nine-game suspension he got as a result from his role in the brawl-filled contest against the Penguins on Feb. 11, and he played a total of 1:51 before being given a checking from behind major and ejected.
“I think his left glove accidentally followed through and made contact to the head,” Snow said. “But by no means do I think he went in with the intention to injury the Minnesota player, I think he was going in with the good intentions to finish his check and I think it’s unfortunate that he did receive a 10-game suspension.”
Although Snow did disagree with the decision, he also sympathized with the tough position the league is put in every night with calls on hits to the head.
“Colin Campbell has a very difficult job,” Snow said about the NHL’s Dean of Discipline. “It’s almost a situation where you can never win.”
It’s almost a certainty that somewhere Cal Clutterbuck is smiling. Before the suspension was announced, he had this to say:
“I think the funniest thing was his quote after the game,” Clutterbuck told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune about Gillies’ statement that he was just finishing his hit. “It was a pretty big joke. He was just trying to finish his check. I don’t know where he learned to hit. I’m pretty sure he just punched me. That’s what I felt and that’s what it looked like on video.
“The fact is he’s only playing there because half their team’s injured,” Clutterbuck continued. “There’s no way that guy should be in the National Hockey League.”
When Cambpell announced the suspension, he was clear that Gillies’ status as a repeat offender was taken in high consideration.
“By targeting his opponent’s head, [four] shifts into his first game back from a suspension for a very similar action, Mr. Gillies has forfeited his privilege of playing in the league for 10 games,” Campbell said in a statement. “While it is fortunate there was no injury on the play, there can be no justification for a player delivering a dangerous check to an opponent in this manner.”
Snow openly recognized that Gillies was penalized because of his repeat offender status, but he also went on to laud Gillies’ reputation as the team’s foremost proponent of community activities.
Snow did concede that Rule 48, which was instituted at the start of this season and is designed to punish illegal checks to the head from a lateral or blind-side position, does have some gray area.
“On any given night, you see lots of plays that result in a hit to the head,” Snow said. “Whether it’s a shoulder, an elbow, a glove or a stick, I think it happens on a consistent basis and it’s something that I think as a league we’re trying to eliminate.”
As for the team, it’s clear the Gllies is liked very much in the locker room, and that was backed Saturday by Micheal Haley.
“I have sympathy for him, because that could be me,” Haley said. “But it’s the game of hockey, some times things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Haley, who is an instigator in his own right and got into two consecutive fights in that Penguins game, was set to return to the lineup after missing the Wild game with a knee bruise resulting from taking a shot from Alex Ovechkin on Tuesday.
“Me and Trevor are different, you know?” Haley said. “He’s that guy and I don’t want to be that guy. He’s one of those guys, and that’s fine, but I’m going to keep doing what I do and hit and try and get under their skin and get in on the forecheck and [if] fights happen, then they happen.”
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It was reported in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the Blues are in talks to sell the majority stake in the franchise and turn over power completely.
Dave Checketts, who used to be the GM of the Knicks in the early 1990s, has owned the Blues since a 2006 purchase by his company, Sports Capital Partners Worldwide. According to the paper, Checketts has received an official offer by St. Louis businessman Tom Stillman, who is currently a minority owner.
TowerBrook Capital Partners, the main investor in the club with about a 75-percent stake in the franchise – estimated at about $100 million – has been seeking a buyer for over a year. It’s believed that if Checketts receives his asking price for the stake (Forbes Magazine, last year, valued the Blues at $165 million, approximately $15 million more than Checketts paid for the team and the lease on Scottrade Center in 2006) he would cede power.