Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle
The subsequent reactions and slashes, when the danger was no longer there, are acts of aggression and intent to injure.
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This isn't true. I get that everyone is watching Kessel and his big "chop" on the second slash and seem to be ignoring everything else but there are two key points that seem to be getting lost.
1) If you stop watching the video in slow motion or frame-by-frame, Kessel's second shash is 2 seconds behind his first one. I highly doubt that Kessel makes the transition from self defense to aggression and intent to injure in that amount of time.
2) The danger is still there. If you look at Scott instead of Kessel what you will see (and what Kessel sees) is that Scott is now punching Kessel's defender in the face. Everything Kessel was worried about having happen to him is now happening to his teammate that came in to save him.
If anything happened, Kessel transitioned from self-defense to trying to help the guy that saved him as the danger transitioned from Kessel to Brennan.
I still wouldn't have given Kessel a suspension for that slash. 5-minute major is good enough considering what Scott is doing at the time.