I would like to see something clarified for those that find this to be polarizing. I really don't think the gap is very large here.
Thinking this play is worthy of a minor or double minor is not the same as thinking it's fine. Nothing that is against the rules is fine. It's against the rules and there are rules for how it can be punished. A 4 min for roughing is a pretty strong infraction that would likely deter Matheson from doing this again as it directly punishes his team in game.
The refs need to do their job and call penalties when they are there before they stretch into injuries on stars (ala Gaudreau and Crosby). People think rules changed when those players got hurt and that's wrong, they just decided to start calling plays by the book. They could have been handing out suspensions for hits to the head for decades without any need for changes to the rule book at the time. Just like they could have simply called slashing penalties instead of letting players get away with cheap shots to the point that it ended up breaking hands. And then there's the big talk of the "crack down" and "that's how they're calling it now". No. Those are the rules and for some reason they are just deciding to use them now.
Give players roughing penalties for doing roughing things and roughing will go away cuz no one likes to kill penalties.
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