In the course of a seven-game series, Calgary Flames star Johnny Gaudreau can expect to be slashed on the hands somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 times. Penalties might be called on about five of those plays. Something is out of whack.
Whack is the right word here because that’s become a handy way to slow down a player with the puck. In National Hockey League circles, it’s called “tapping,” the act of slashing a player on the gloves.
That’s Hockey 2nite reports that Gaudreau took 21 taps to the gloves in a Nov. 15 game between Minnesota and Calgary, including a final one by Eric Staal that broke his finger – an infraction that went unpenalized.
Gaudreau went to the bench again Wednesday night shaking his hand after Los Angeles Kings forward Tyler Toffoli slashed him on the hands. This time Gaudreau won’t miss six weeks with a busted digit and Toffoli got pinched for two minutes.
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The uneven approach can be exasperating for the likes of Flames’ GM Brad Treliving.
"The frustration from my standpoint was this wasn't just a single act,” Treliving said in November. “If you look at the game in Minnesota…there are rules in the rule book for when you get whacked like he's getting whacked. We think there could've been a call made. This isn't moaning and groaning. Top players learn to deal with, play around and play through some of this. But when you strike a guy in the hand, there's a penalty for it.
"We've got a lot of rules in the book. And one of them is slashing. We think some of the things Johnny's played through and had to deal with…there are calls there.”
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It’s Crosby’s reaction that strikes me as most relevant. Something is not right when arguably the game’s best player states he gets checked with a stick to the hands on a regular basis. No one is paying to watch Crosby get slowed by players using illegal tactics. The NHL allowed the hooking and waterskiing of the late 1990s to diminish the skills of stars like Mario Lemieux and Brett Hull. Lemieux called the NHL a “garage league” at the time.
"The advantage is to the marginal players now. They can hook and grab, and the good players can't do what they're supposed to do,” said Lemieux.
Are we at the same point with today’s slashing? Absolutely not. But why wait to see if it gets there? There’s too much of it. Why not curb it before it does become an epidemic? At least one person, TSN director of scouting Craig Button, believes that’s what it is already.
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The balance the NHL must always weigh is between skill and the ability to deter or impede offence. Do they want to allow Gaudreau and his like to do their thing, or do they want to give players the opportunity to slow them down? Offence sells tickets and defence wins games. It’s the yin and yang of the NHL.
Talking to a number of NHL types over the last week about Crosby’s unpenalized slash brought mixed reaction. From, “That’s a penalty and we don’t call it often enough,” to “It’s always been in the game and we shouldn’t take it out,” there has been all manner of comment.
The fact there is no consensus suggests nothing will change soon. A movement from the GMs is the best way for the NHL’s hockey people to get behind an issue and enact change. That hasn’t happened.
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The most interesting thing I learned from that article is that TSN has a 'Director of Scouting'.
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Realistically it's way too much to put on the shoulders of the on ice officials to catch every slash during a game. At a minimum, the league needs to start reviewing every game with a fine tooth comb, looking for slashes that cross the line and begin dishing out fines.
Hitting players in the pocketbook, regardless of injury will begin to curb the problem imho.
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IMO it's a matter of time until Gaudreau suffers a major wrist injury the way he gets slashed every game. Unfortunately it's probably going to take that injury happening to McDavid or Matthews before this gets the major attention it deserves.
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I think a lot of these little slashes are ignored by refs because they're under pressure to manage the game. Right now, if they were to call every slash they saw, it would be a penalty parade.
If it's going to stop, the NHL has to commit to calling every "tap" an official sees, despite how lopsided the pp opportunities get. It would only take a few games for the players to learn.
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k im just not going to respond to your #### anymore because i have better things to do like #### my model girlfriend rather then try to convince people like you of commonly held hockey knowledge.
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The most interesting thing I learned from that article is that TSN has a 'Director of Scouting'.
Gee, so sorry it wasn't up to your discerning tastes.
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This is the types of problems you run into when you don't call rules consistently. When you allow some slashing, hooking and crosschecking, it becomes impossible to call this stuff properly.
Just call them all, and it would stop pretty quick, because players would just have to learn to keep their sticks down. (Much like in floorball, which actually has a rule that you can't lift your stick above a certain level unless you're executing a slapshot.)
There's no legal play where you need to lift your stick and put it against an opposing player.
I actually think forcing players to control their sticks would increase the physicality of the game, as players would be forced to use their body for positioning and hits, not their sticks.
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Gee, so sorry it wasn't up to your discerning tastes.
Nothing against the article, it was fine, but it just seems very odd to me that TSN would employ a 'Director of Scouting'. Like, what?
The article was fine, though.
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"This has been TheScorpion's shtick for years. All these hot takes, clickbait nonsense just to feed his social media algorithms." –Tuco
I think a lot of these little slashes are ignored by refs because they're under pressure to manage the game. Right now, if they were to call every slash they saw, it would be a penalty parade.
If it's going to stop, the NHL has to commit to calling every "tap" an official sees, despite how lopsided the pp opportunities get. It would only take a few games for the players to learn.
Hockey is the only sport where officials feel the need to "manage" a game. This is something that needs to be removed from the culture of hockey officiating as the mid-90's clutch and grab era was all their fault given today's obstruction rules were in effect then and they simply chose not to call them. Of course after the lockout the NHL mandated that they call games by the book but we have seen in recent years the officials going back to managing games and putting their whistles away. It's just one of those things where the NHL needs to have a house cleaning and dinosaurs like Colin Campbell shot out of a cannon.
Can you imagine in MLB baseball if umpires in a tight game started calling strikes on balls to keep a game tight? As ridiculous as that sounds NHL officials have been doing this forever.
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k im just not going to respond to your #### anymore because i have better things to do like #### my model girlfriend rather then try to convince people like you of commonly held hockey knowledge.
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And of course Johnny had his stick smashed into pieces last night too while carrying the puck and didn't get a call on that either.
iirc, that was an upward lift rather than a downward slash. It would be tough to support making stick checking illegal. If my memory is serving me correctly, then I am fine with that non-call. That's just a weak stick.
Realistically it's way too much to put on the shoulders of the on ice officials to catch every slash during a game. At a minimum, the league needs to start reviewing every game with a fine tooth comb, looking for slashes that cross the line and begin dishing out fines.
Hitting players in the pocketbook, regardless of injury will begin to curb the problem imho.
If the league can expect them to call those itty, bitty little hooks to the hands, then calling the little slashes should present no greater burden.
Hockey is the only sport where officials feel the need to "manage" a game. This is something that needs to be removed from the culture of hockey officiating as the mid-90's clutch and grab era was all their fault given today's obstruction rules were in effect then and they simply chose not to call them. Of course after the lockout the NHL mandated that they call games by the book but we have seen in recent years the officials going back to managing games and putting their whistles away. It's just one of those things where the NHL needs to have a house cleaning and dinosaurs like Colin Campbell shot out of a cannon.
Can you imagine in MLB baseball if umpires in a tight game started calling strikes on balls to keep a game tight? As ridiculous as that sounds NHL officials have been doing this forever.
I get your point, but umps do make up their own strike zones in MLB. Travelling in the NBA is often dependent on who is doing it. Holding and pass interference in the NFL are very often open to interpretation and the time left on the clock.
None of that makes it any better in the NHL of course, and it is particularly frustrating when slashing is a defensive strategy that is allowed against the Flames most talented player.
Nothing against the article, it was fine, but it just seems very odd to me that TSN would employ a 'Director of Scouting'. Like, what?
The article was fine, though.
I don't think that's very odd at all. TSN is always releasing articles whether they are ranking players, mock drafts, mock expansion drafts, comparing players, etc. All seem to require scouting to a certain degree.
iirc, that was an upward lift rather than a downward slash. It would be tough to support making stick checking illegal. If my memory is serving me correctly, then I am fine with that non-call. That's just a weak stick.
No. Doughty is doing a stick lift for sure, but Brown comes in and smashed it hard with a slash.