Tom Wilson gets Match Penalty for brutal hit on Blues' Oskar Sundqvist

[BBQorMILDEW]

If you cut across the middle with your head down, you’re asking for trouble. It’s literally the first thing you’re taight not to do from Atom hockey. IMO it’s a good, clean hit. But in today’s Nancy Pansy NHL it’s a dangerous hit.

Probably will get 5-7 games.

[Hey Connor, It's Mess]

Originally Posted by BBQorMILDEW

If you cut across the middle with your head down, you’re asking for trouble. It’s literally the first thing you’re taight not to do from Atom hockey. IMO it’s a good, clean hit. But in today’s Nancy Pansy NHL it’s a dangerous hit.

Probably will get 5-7 games.

Careful, if you say NHL players should know not to cut into the middle with their head down, you'll be told "but they're just trying to score duuuude."

[Snuffleupagus]

If it isn't 6+ games George Parros needs a pink slip

[Murph]

Originally Posted by ripTDR

Truth is, I don’t know what I think about this kind of thing

I think we already do

Thank you for putting all kinds of words in my mouth. Posters such as yourself, who assume they can discern another’s tone or state of mind and then leap to any number of conclusions, are half the reason why debates such as this one go south.

The other half? Well there are two sides to every story, and I just took the bait and responded sarcastically, didn’t I.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

To those saying he should have let up because it's a pre-season game... would you be fine with this hit in the regular season? Playoffs? Would you be fine with a marginal player who is trying to make the team doing it? I am curious what the line is.

This is the big question. To me, there is no difference in what time of year the game is played. Ask Curtis Lazar or Brett Kulak if it would have bettered their chances of making the Flames if they "let up" because it was just pre-season? You play how you practice and practice how you play. The time of year argument doesn't hold water IMO, because when do the real games start? When should a player be going at 100%? Pre-season? Game 10? Game 20? Game 40? Start of the playoffs? Save it for the Stanley Cup? As a paying customer, I want to see 100% effort all the time.


I'm torn on discussions like this. I like to see big body checks. I like the physicality of the game. I also don't like to see players have their heads taken off, but when does a player become responsible for their own safety? If you're cutting to the middle you have to have your head on a swivel. Don't place yourself in a position to get rocked. It's kind of like guys who play three feet off the boards and see a defender coming at them and then they spin to face the boards to protect the puck. They just put themselves in a position to take a dangerous hit. They are equally responsible IMO.


I don't know what Wilson should get. The hit was bang-bang after a shot, and size difference comes into play. I don't think this is as bad as some of his previous work, but it was still a high hit. I'll say he should get 5-7 games for it, but the league should use this as a teaching moment for all players about not putting themselves in position to take big hit. If they want to remove stuff like this from them game they they may as well just remove all contact from the game and make it more like the women's game. Intentional body contact becomes a penalty? The league has a tough call to make here, and its going to take the enjoyment out of the game for some regardless of which way the call goes.

[habernac]

Garbage hit by a garbage player. Parros needs to send a message. It's been, what, 12 whole games since his last suspension? Give him 20.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Mike F

The big problem, that should lead to a lengthy suspension, is that Wilson has all of the time to set up for a "full body check", but instead comes across the front of Sundqvist, placing a lot of the contact on the head, and whipping him around. It was much more dangerous than it should have been.

This is pretty much it - Wilson missed. He hit the guy too high. I doubt he was trying to miss, and he could certainly have missed worse - he still hit the guy, he didn't pick the head. It's probably going to result in missing a few games of the regular season because he's Tom Wilson, but I'd bet it wasn't the worst hit we'll see this month.

On another note, I swear that some of the people in this thread must base their opinions on how hitting should work from playing video games. I think my favourite is the notion that if a guy cuts across the high slot and you're going to hit him, you should somehow assess, in real time, whether he's going to get the shot off before you get there, and if you conclude that he will, you should let up. That right there fully disqualifies you from having an opinion about anything in hockey ever.

[Resolute 14]

The problem with this type of hit, as always, is that it came blind side. If Wilson had come from the front and caught Sundqvist with his head down, so be it. But head up or down, you can't defend against someone coming from 4 o'clock.

Though, if we went back to teaching how to throw a hip check, that might help too.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

The problem with this type of hit, as always, is that it came blind side. If Wilson had come from the front and caught Sundqvist with his head down, so be it. But head up or down, you can't defend against someone coming from 4 o'clock.

Though, if we went back to teaching how to throw a hip check, that might help too.

This post makes no sense to me. First of all, how in this situation was Wilson supposed to hip check him? Or are you saying Sundqvist should have gone low and cradled Wilson?

But the other thing is, you can't "come from the front". It's off a rush. 100% of the time, if you're making a play inside the blue line on a rush, you know that the opposing team has a guys - generally the forwards - coming back through the neutral zone. Acting as if he couldn't possibly have known he was going to get hit from that angle is silly. This is why, since forever, kids learn that if you make this move you're going to get hit. The fact that Sundqvist appears clueless about this basic reality of the game in this instance is on him. You can't obtain the protection of the rulebook simply by being oblivious to the other guys on the ice, which is why the "blindside" rule lasted months before being removed and why it doesn't work. Having the rulebook incentivize players to make themselves more vulnerable results in more injuries, not fewer. Had Wilson wiped the guy out with a full-body hit, there'd be no problem with this for me. The problem is where he made contact, not the amount of force he exerted or where he came from or where the hit took place.

[Murph]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

The problem with this type of hit, as always, is that it came blind side. If Wilson had come from the front and caught Sundqvist with his head down, so be it. But head up or down, you can't defend against someone coming from 4 o'clock.

Though, if we went back to teaching how to throw a hip check, that might help too.

I’m starting to think that the problem with this type of hit has more to do with the fact that open ice hitting is allowed at all.

Inevitably, if open ice hitting is allowed, you are going to get hits like this regardless of the punishments that are doled out. Throw on that deciding which hit is legal and which one isn’t is subjective, and you end up in the mess that the NHL player safety people are in. I think the only way to eliminate the type of thing Wilson did, is to eliminate open ice hitting altogether.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a bone crunching (legal) open ice hit as much as the next guy, but if the NHL is serious about reducig head shots, my impression is that the majority of them occur on plays such as this. Then you’re into the situation I describe above.

If the NHL moved to eliminate open ice hits, they’d be starting down a slippery slope however. The question would arise as to the appropriate place to stop (e.g. do you allow hits a certain distance from the boards, or do you eliminate it all together). Ultimately, I think that’s a risk/reward discussion that the NHL isn’t prepared to have right now, especially in light of the ongoing concussion litigation.

[fireguyfire]

It’s pretty amazing (in a good way) how far we’ve come; 20 years ago when Scott Stevens was doing that weekly that hit would have been too 5 greatest on the latest DOn Cherry rock em sock em video.
I love physical hockey but there is no place for hits like that anymore


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Resolute 14]

Corsi - you realize that the league didn't eliminate the blindside portion of the rules, but instead made the 'contact to the head' part apply from any direction, right? They strengthened the rule.

But, I'm not talking about rule book here. I'm talking about the angle Wilson took to make the hit. If Wilson came from the front, I'd be with you on the sentiment: Tough luck kid, keep your head up next time. But since Wilson came from the blind side, I'm inclined to support the NHL's position that this was a match penalty offence and warrants 5+ games.

As far as throwing a hip check goes, Wilson actually almost got parallel to Sundvqist once the latter player cut to the right. So yes, I think he could have attempted a hip to hip check instead of powering through.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by BBQorMILDEW

If you cut across the middle with your head down, you’re asking for trouble. It’s literally the first thing you’re taight not to do from Atom hockey. IMO it’s a good, clean hit. But in today’s Nancy Pansy NHL it’s a dangerous hit.

Probably will get 5-7 games.

"Nancy Pansy NHL"
Brutal man.
This has nothing to do with lame machismo, except that it is out of touch attitudes like that - that prevent the NHL from taking a bigger step forward with this garbage
There is nothing "Good" or "Clean" about that hit.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Yeah, and I disagree with you. The rule was changed because it's the contact to the head that's the important thing, not the position of the players. The entire concept of a blind side hit is poorly thought out. If a player can make himself ineligible to hit simply by changing his body position, he can eliminate an entire segment of the ice from being legally defendable. And as already noted, if a guy cuts across on a rush, there will always be someone coming from the neutral zone, which will always be "blind side". Your version of reality makes it impossible for those players to throw a hit, unless they circle around to change the angle, which is basically asking to be scored on.

Asking players to change their angle of approach and try to execute a hip check using their own momentum is insanely difficult at NHL speed... I don't think that's reasonable.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by BBQorMILDEW

If you cut across the middle with your head down, you’re asking for trouble. It’s literally the first thing you’re taight not to do from Atom hockey. IMO it’s a good, clean hit. But in today’s Nancy Pansy NHL it’s a dangerous hit.

Probably will get 5-7 games.

Nope. They teach you not to throw the puck up the middle and lots of other things in Atom. But since there's no hitting for two more levels after Atom, they don't really focus on that kind of thing. If anything, I suppose, they teach "don't hit that guy who's skating across the middle".

[Red_Baron]

Scott Stevens was usually stepping up to hit the guy cutting to the middle, not flying back from the blindside so not a fair comparison.



Either way, Wilson was not in a good position to make a hit and should have been boxing guys out for a potential rebound. At the very least, he needs to keep his left elbow down. After contact, his elbow comes in contact with the head. Hope he gets at least 5 games.

[Geeoff]

Originally Posted by BBQorMILDEW

If you cut across the middle with your head down, you’re asking for trouble. It’s literally the first thing you’re taight not to do from Atom hockey. IMO it’s a good, clean hit. But in today’s Nancy Pansy NHL it’s a dangerous hit.

Probably will get 5-7 games.

I'm sorry but this is charging in any era and potentially elbowing.

Wilson is a repeat offender, so he probably wouldn't get the benefit of the doubt in any era either.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Geeoff

I'm sorry but this is charging in any era and potentially elbowing.

####ing hell, no it's not. What is this, bizarro world? Have any of you watched hockey before? Charging requires striding into the hit. Wilson takes a total of one stride and glides into the hit from the blue line. Elbowing requires that you, y'know, elbow someone. Wilson hits him with his shoulder.

It's so freakin' annoying every time one of these things happen to have people who didn't like the high - rightly, in this case - to start dreaming up fouls that weren't committed on the play. This isn't interference, it isn't elbowing, it isn't charging, it's a hit where the principal point of contact is the head. That's all it is and all it needs to be for a suspension to be handed out.

[Geeoff]

Charging shall mean that the actions of a player or goalkeeper who, as a result of distance traveled, shall violently check and opponent in any manner. A "charge" may be the result of a check into the boards, into the goal frame or in open ice.

The official rule mentions distance travelled and doesn't mention strides.

[Resolute 14]

Have any of you watched hockey before? Charging requires striding into the hit.

Uhh, if you're going to call people out for not understanding hockey, you'd best not completely misrepresent a rule in the very next sentence.