Quote:
Originally Posted by sa226
Way late on this. But I'll weigh in anyways.
As others have said clean hit with ugly consequences. Everything was body on body. The snapping of the head was a result of it being attached to the body. Maybe the shoulder made contact with the jaw, but it was tough to tell.
To me the only potential dirty part of the hit was that it was a blind side. He didn't see him coming and paid the consequences. Should the Ott player let up in that case? Debatable. First of all its Hockey, second of all its the freaking playoffs.
Its been awhile but from what I remember as a kid when I first played contact hockey (peewee I think) The biggest thing you learn, is how to protect yourself, anticipate contact, leanr body position and essentially keep your head up. More importantly you learn how to not put your teammates in a position to have to make a choice between a turnover and getting creamed.
To me thats all on Diaz. We get a good angle on his sightlines on the pass. Eller doesn't have much of a choice, he is feeling the upside pressure and has to take the pass otherwise its a blueline turnover.
From a pure hockey standpoint thats clean play and a beauty of a hit. With unfortunate results.
The debate on this play belongs in discussions about violence in hockey, protecting players etc etc. Which quite frankly, I'm bored of.
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Except that it wasnt really "blindside" other than Eller had his head down...something the attacking player has no control over.
If they want to call this hit illegal going forward...well you can consider the fundamentals of the game changed as well and they seriously may as well just make all contact illegal.