Staple's NHL Insider: Campbell should have set precedent: No head hits
Boston Bruins' Marc Savard waves to the crowd while being carted off the ice during the third period of an NHL hockey game after a hit by Pittsburgh Penguins' Matt Cooke. (March 7, 2010) Credit: AP
On the eve of the general managers' meetings a week ago, Matt Cooke threw a shoulder to Marc Savard's head.
Colin Campbell, the NHL's vice president of hockey operations, its czar of discipline and the host of sorts of the GM meetings, was about to deliver a presentation on hits to the head and hopefully come out with some sort of encompassing rule to cover all blows to the head in games.
With the Bruins' Savard possibly out for the season with a concussion and the Penguins' Cooke awaiting a hearing, the GM meetings took on extra attention.
And Campbell, whose job is the least enviable perhaps in all of sports, dropped the ball this time. After a hearing with Cooke on Wednesday, Campbell chose not to suspend the Penguins forward despite overwhelming evidence supporting a suspension.
Campbell relied on precedent, he announced, saying that Cooke's hit was technically legal and similar to one that Flyers captain Mike Richards delivered to the Panthers' David Booth in October. Booth missed three months with post-concussion syndrome and Richards was not suspended.
Campbell and the 30 NHL GMs came out of the meetings in Florida this week with a new rule: Blindside hits to the head, even ones with shoulders that have been legal in the past, will not be allowed next season.
In this instance, Cooke should have earned a suspension. He was a repeat offender, having been banned two games for throwing a similar hit on the Rangers' Artem Anisimov in November and another similar hit on Scott Walker last season. Cooke caused a severe injury, which is a questionable criterium but one that Campbell has used before, and there was clear intent to injure, given that Cooke hit Savard right after the Bruins player had taken a shot and was clearly looking elsewhere.
Even the comparison to the Richards hit was a stretch, given that Richards hit Booth in the neutral zone, after Booth made a quick pass with his head down - a borderline hit, to be sure, but still a hockey play. Cooke targeted Savard, who was in the Penguins' zone and watching his shot.
The outcry of the hockey-watching public is now so much greater after such a clearly vicious blow than it would have been if Campbell had banned Cooke for five games, or eight, or 10; there's no way Cooke would have shouted, "Precedent! Precedent!" had he been suspended.
And there have been precedent-defying bans from Campbell's office in the past - Sean Avery's six-game suspension for his off-color remarks last season far surpassed any on-ice suspension, even for a racial slur.
The lack of a suspension and any kind of chilling effect it would have had has left the door open for anyone to toss a shoulder to the head for the rest of this season and into the playoffs without fear of suspension.
If I were Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin, the two most important of Cooke's teammates, I'd be very worried. Not just when the Bruins rematch with the Penguins, as they do Thursday, but every game until this season is done.
Even Bill Guerin, another of Cooke's teammates, derided the lack of a suspension this week. Guerin gets it: Any time a player like Cooke takes out a fellow player with what is clearly an intent to injure, it becomes open season, which helps no one.
The league has a new rule for next season, which is a small step in the right direction. Campbell should have set another rule, starting immediately, that the NHL doesn't tolerate hits like Cooke's, no matter the technicalities.
Wrong message
Islanders general manager Garth Snow had his play-in proposal - having the bottom eight teams in each conference go through an elimination tournament for the last playoff spot - rejected by his fellow GMs this week, even though he's a believer in the idea that every team should get a shot at the postseason.
The main problem with that is a team could either tank the season for the No. 1 overall pick and still be among the final eight or a team with a true No. 1 goaltender could rest that guy for a few weeks, fall into 14th or 15th, and put its big-game guy back in for the tournament.
Back when the NHL had 21 teams, it was derided for letting 16 into the postseason. Now, with 16 of 30 getting in, it's hard to make the playoffs. Snow's suggestion, though fun, takes too much steam out of the regular season.
