Quote:
Originally Posted by kevman
You don't have to remove checking, you just have to make all head contact illegal. No more excusing follow throughs, if you make contact with the head it's a major. In both hits, Trouba extends his legs through the hit and in both cases it's 100% unnecessary to separate the guy from the puck.
Make it like high-sticking, if you make contact to the head it's a penalty. It doesn't eliminate open-ice hits, it just protects your players.
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It's a slippery slope though. We get the benefit of slowed-down replays and hindsight. In a split second where your principal point of contact is aiming to be the body, it can change to the head pretty quickly unintentionally. We see it all the time with hits from behind as well where a guy turns his back at the last second. Guys are going to get hurt from time to time it's unavoidable even if you removed hitting. Someone blowing a tire or having their head down running into an opponent. We will never reach a point of seeing no concussions in hockey and I don't see an issue with the current rules.