It actually still stings as much as Peter Pocklington orchestrating his trade, oddly.

FastOil: I don’t buy into the argument players don’ t know where they are or what they are doing. They do play at a very high pace, and I see the problem as being more instinctual or reaction based.That is not to say it’s subconscious – it’s still in the realm of decisive thought. What needs to change is the acceptable level of compete. Playing to the maximum now includes dangerous and overly aggressive hits, hits that many ex NHL’ers agree would not have been tolerated by other players in the past – read payback for disrespect and cheap shots.The league has never protected players well – thus the need for payback. It’s time to set meaningful limits, and within a season we will see just as much hitting and board play, minus the outright headhunting that is going on.The players insticts will quickly reset to the new level, just like with any rule change, and they will usually back off hits that are iffy. I highly doubt there would be any negative effects on the game, once everyone adjusted. These types of hits I think are more prevalent now, and always took away from the game when they did happen. Seeing Gretzky’s career being diminished (as well as Kariya’s) by the same late hitting, cross checking psycho did not appeal to my enjoyment of the physical side of hockey. It was just really vicious and violent in the wrong way, and in the case of Gretzky I couldn’t wait until Messier evened the deal, which I don’t think he ever did. Does the league need hacks malicously injuring the other players for the hockey to be good? It’s not hard to solve, it’s the resolve that’s hard.

Nice post. I’ll just add that Suter is a piece of dog crap. He was easily the dirtiest player of his era with maybe the exception of Chelios.

The nice thing about Suter is that he got cross checked in the head on a regular basis. He even got one in that tournament when he hit Gretzky. Ironically, it was a Russian who did it to Suter though, but it was the game after that.

I completely get what you’re saying too about a player’s instincts, and I agree too. I’m not so sure what it will take to de-program a player from thrusting a player face first into a stanchion (let’s not sugar coat it… Chara intended to push him into it, whether he meant to hurt him bad or not). Stiffer penalties are definitely an option.. as is dropping the instigator, but given the whole news about Probert’s brain being mush, I can’t see the latter ever happening. The league did say that man games lost due to concussions are down to 17% this season from 44% last year though, so that is at least good.

I think they should look at equipment, the arena, and stiffer penalties.. these are all 3 things they are doing though and Bettman mentioned he’s committed to.

That is not to say it’s subconscious – it’s still in the realm of decisive thought. What needs to change is the acceptable level of compete. Playing to the maximum now includes dangerous and overly aggressive hits, hits that many ex NHL’ers agree would not have been tolerated by other players in the past – read payback for disrespect and cheap shots.

The league has never protected players well – thus the need for payback. It’s time to set meaningful limits, and within a season we will see just as much hitting and board play, minus the outright headhunting that is going on.

The players insticts will quickly reset to the new level, just like with any rule change, and they will usually back off hits that are iffy. I highly doubt there would be any negative effects on the game, once everyone adjusted.

These types of hits I think are more prevalent now, and always took away from the game when they did happen. Seeing Gretzky’s career being diminished (as well as Kariya’s) by the same late hitting, cross checking psycho did not appeal to my enjoyment of the physical side of hockey. It was just really vicious and violent in the wrong way, and in the case of Gretzky I couldn’t wait until Messier evened the deal, which I don’t think he ever did. Does the league need hacks malicously injuring the other players for the hockey to be good?

It’s not hard to solve, it’s the resolve that’s hard.

@ HL, let’s not be too hasty about Pacioretty’s ability to come back. These injuries take months and sometimes years to know the full effects.

I think what happened here is Mike Smith dropped the ball in making a call that he’s not used to making. He’s the good goal/bad goal guy. Campbell recused himself because his son plays for Boston. Should have been at least a 2-4 game suspension and likely more to me.