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Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop
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And another layer gets added to this story. As has been discussed above, sports suspensions for non-sports related activities is a grey area, and particularly where there are very few modern precedents.
Both 27 and 18 games are hefty. If the initial suspension was 18 games instead of 27, the initial reactions would have probably been the same. The same people who thought it was too lenient would still think it was too lenient, while I imagine the people who thought it was too much or beyond the scope of the NHL would still have the same opinion. Let's be honest; if you think that this is for the justice system to deal with, and not the NHL, going from 27 to 18 games doesn't make you happy . And if you think that domestic abusers have no place in the NHL, 27 games wasn't going to make you happy to begin with.
But now, the absolute number of games doesn't really matter, as much as the fact that it's now been reduced. This is seemingly as arbitrarily as the initial suspension.
I think the punishment for this type of situation needs to be explicitly laid out in advance. Perhaps even referenced in the new CBA? So that there is a mutual understanding of what players should expect when they do this. Of course, there are shades of grey as in any type of punishment, but a pre-emptive general guide might help.