Happy to hear no suspension, I thought he was going to get a couple of games, but that's because I thought the hit was late. Clearly they've looked at it and determined it wasn't, or at least it was barely late and not worth suspension.
Listened to the comments from DeBoer and Kane. The DeBoer comments don't bother me, I thought he was pretty balanced, and when asked very specifically about the hit, he described it accurately. Bennett went out looking for an opportunity to send a message make a physical impact (likely because he was pissed about the slash and the previous shift where the Sharks went after our players in a scrum), so describing it as predatory is accurate. But as we have now seen, predatory doesn't make it illegal. I had way more issue (although think it's super entertaining) with Kane's comments around the Flames playing tougher once he left the game....................yes Kane, Bennett seems like the type to be intimidated, and also you left the game 20 seconds earlier, give me a break.
I'm still torn on the timing of the hit. Legal or not, I don't know I want to see players potentially injured in decided games as they are letting the clock run out(my take would be different if this was a playoff series and these teams were going at it again in two days in a best of 7). But I also agree with the posters that say this is what the Flames have been missing the past few years. The Sharks can play victim all they want, they were all over our best players and started a scrum and went after Chucky the shift before............. Bennett went out and responded and as we know now, did so in an impactfull fashion within the rules.............hard to not like what that means for the team.
Next game is going to be nuts between these two though, it will be a bit of a circus, this isn't something that's going to fade away. Thinking Chucky on Doughty elbow kind of pre-game and during game antics, likely worse..........which will be fun.
|