Quote:
Originally Posted by bubbsy
i thought the Eriksson hit was more or less fine (we loved when sarich dished out the same exact hit).
The neal hit was dumb and he should sit a few games.
everyone understands thornton's role and what he was trying to do, but if the other player isn't willing to engage, you gotta sit back and take a number and wait for your opportunity. Everyone talks about a hockey code, and it gets more and more blurred with clean hits resulting in players wanting to fight. Just a few games ago, stempniak gets ference good with a clean hit, and ference gets up and starts throwing them. Stempniak is old school enough to engage, take his shots and move on. if stempniak didn't engage, got dropped/hurt, is it not the same situation?
i think the code has been, and will remain, if you go for a big hit on a team's skilled players, you better be prepared to answer for it. I thought orpik not doing so was a bit cowardly.... maybe that's the decades of coach's corner talking.
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I think this post is generally pretty bang on. This is an interesting situation for me. I agree that Thronton needed to show more disipline and wait for an opportunity more appropriate to stick up for his team. That said, from a personal point of view, what Thronton did, didn't really make me think that much less of him. I actually thought he wasn't trying to "destroy" Orpik. The way he through Orpik down / slew footed him, along with the lack of vigor IMO he had behind his punches leads me to believe he wasn't trying to serioulsy injure Orpik. He didn't drive him into the ground, he didn't wrecklessly smack his head against the ice or even take close to half the wind up he could have when punching Orpik. Honestly think Orpik got really unlucky and Thronton must have just caught him right on the button.
Now, from a suspension and what's right point of view, nothing I said above matters. The NHL has to lower the hammer on Thronton IMO. The fact that I don't think he went as "hard" as he could have at Orpik doesn't change the fact that he still engaged a player that was not a willing combatant, and even if he "tried" to measure his response, the fact of the matter is he knocked him out and a stretcher was needed. The NHL needs to send the message that you can't attack un-willing players, and needs to send a message that if you do things you aren't suppossed to, and someone gets seriously hurt, you will pay a price.