Should dirty hits on teams in your division mean a longer suspension?
I can’t believe we’re talking about this again.
The NHL has suspended Mattias Ohlund four games for his vicious two-handed slash on Mikko Koivu. See for yourself here:
We could sit here and debate the length of the suspension and the rise of violence in the NHL today, especially among Philadelphia Flyer type players (I kid, I kid), but something else got me thinking.
When Ohlund slashed Koivu, breaking the bone, Koivu was the leading scorer of the Minnesota Wild. Vancouver is a mere 3 points behind Minnesota in the thus far disappointing Northwest Division. The teams plays again on Wednesday.
Koivu is out for a week, so when the teams play again, Vancouver will have an advantage.
So thanks to a Vancouver player’s dirty work, both teams will be missing players, but the Wild will feel it most of all. Even with the suspension, Vancouver comes out ahead after the slash.
If a team is essentially rewarded for dirty play, why stop?
Should players who go after players of teams in their own division face a stricter suspension?
When the Flyer’s Jesse Boulerice injured the Canuck’s Ryan Kessler, it did the Flyers no favors. But if Koivu were out for an extended time and the Wild lost a few games from it, who would benefit more than a team that plays them eight times a year?
(This could turn into another argument against playing the teams in your division a thousand times a season and not seeing half the league for three years, but I promise I won’t go there. Today anyway).
Now, I know, one team’s players shouldn’t be more important than another team’s and it’s tough to get the suspensions warranted for half the stuff we see anyway, and we don’t want to take the intensity out of the divisional rivalries that we do have. I’m not talking about fighting injuries or those injuries that happen during the regular course of play. Just the really brutal obvious stuff.
I can’t get past the fact that a Vancouver player willfully injured another team’s player — I mean the slash broke the bone — and even with a suspension, they come out ahead for the next matchup. I mean, they give up Ohlund, but the other team loses the play Koivu. I’d make that trade a hundred times.
Wouldn’t you?
Mattias Ohlund, Mikko Koivu, Philadelphia Flyer, Minnesota Wild, Jesse Boulerice, Ryan Kessler
November 19th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I kind of have to disagree with the longer suspensions for games against division opponents. I suppose it may be a good idea, but that’s still sort of promoting violent hits to non-division opponents. But for this particular case with Koivu, I was calling for at least 15 games, probably 20. I’m a huge Wild fan, and when I saw that play live, I flipped out. And when people say that Koivu was trying to elbow Ohlund, that is totally false. Watch the video more closely, you can tell that Koivu was just trying to get around Ohlund. Koivu is the last player to play dirty, he would never throw an elbow.