[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

What no tolerance approach? There have been at least 4 other videos in this thread that would have been worthy of punishment if there was in fact a no tolerance approach.

The "no tolerance" of any deliberate contact made with an official. In virtually all other instances, there is a substantial amount of evidence to suggest that in each one, all contact with the official was either accidental or incidental. There is a lot more room for reasonable doubt in the Wideman case.

Did Joseph not deliberately skate as fast as he could directly towards the official? I don't believe for a second that he intended to make any contact with him, but he was still responsible for his actions that lead to the incident.

There is very little doubt that the contact between Joseph and the official was anything but accidental. The same cannot be said for Wideman and Henderson.

There is no evidence that Wideman intended to do anything (I don't discount that it's possible though).

What everyone continues to miss—and what makes this case exceptional is that Wideman's actions appear to be very plausibly intentional. Not necessarily the initial hit, but the case can certainly be made for the cross check that followed. There is a lot more room for doubt in this instance than in any of the others, which is why the League is taking it so seriously, and rightly so.