Alex Ovechkin, Dan Girardi Involved in Questionable Hits

Much has been made since Saturday's Washington win over the New York Rangers of a hit by Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin on New York defenseman Dan Girardi. Puck Daddy has more. Let's go to the videotape.



It doesn't sound like Ovechkin will face a suspension, which will surely endear him to Ranger fans as they play Game 5 at the Garden Monday night.

I don't have a real problem with the decision. At 0:09 of the video, you can see Ovechkin make what I believe to be contact with Girardi's shoulder. He may have hit Girardi's head, but I believe the principal point of contact was the shoulder.

Since Ovechkin left his feet before contact, a charging call is the correct one here.

The problem I have with this issue is how much control the media has over the fans. The Ovechkin hit was talked about, debated, and shown many times over the weekend. Fans had a chance to throw opinions out there and debate whether Ovechkin -- a repeat offender -- should face discipline.

But -- via my SB Nation friends at Japer's Rink -- what about this hit?



Puck? Gone.

Hendricks? Unsuspecting of the hit.

Contact? High.

I don't think Girardi should be suspended for this hit, but if you feel differently about the Ovechkin hit, how can you not think that way here? No, Girardi didn't leave his feet, but that's not the only qualifier for a questionable hit. Just ask Claude Giroux.



Giroux should have a hearing on this one. Wouldn't be surprised if he sat a game, simply because there appears to be more intent to make contact with the head, and direct contact with the head was indeed made.

The NHL has made some tough decisions, and I haven't agreed with all of them. But the league got the Raffi Torres call right, and I believe they have come closer to being right on most of the decisions made this postseason, outside of the Shea Weber debacling.

As the playoffs go on, it doesn't seem like a strech to say there are more difficult decisions to come for the Department of Player Safety.

Raffi Torres Adds to NHL's Playoff Pain

There is a lot of good to have come out of these NHL playoffs so far.

The games have been -- for the most part -- close, dramatic, edge-of-your-seat stuff. Exciting finishes, overtime games, upsets, and some great pace to games. It's enough to keep a hockey fan excited on a nightly basis.

Unfortunately, the controversies are getting close to outweighing everything good that has happened. There have been dirty hits, suspensions, non-suspensions, injuries, non-injuries, and all the like. It's been tough, because the negative attention seems to be all that some (ahem, ESPN) want to heap on the sport, despite everything great that has happened so far.

The latest controversy came Tuesday night in Chicago. Phoenix pest Raffi Torres -- who was featured in a Chicago Sun Times article Tuesday playing dumb about why Blackhawks fans hate his guts -- was at it again, laying an exceptionally dirty and dangerous hit on Chicago forward Marian Hossa.



For a player with a past like Torres, this is as much a request to be suspended for a long time as anyone could possibly concoct.

(Well, unless you're Coyotes TV analyst Tyson Nash, who called it "as clean a hit as you'll ever get." Hey, not everyone on Earth is blessed with vision.)

This is not what the NHL wanted. There have been six suspensions since Sunday, and now you can add at least one more to the list. And it should be the longest.

The three-game ban Chicago's Andrew Shaw got for his hit on Phoenix goalie Mike Smith made me think NHL discipline guy Brendan Shanahan had seen enough. A four-game suspension to Pittsburgh's Arron Asham for his shenanigans Sunday gave me more evidence toward that.

If Torres doesn't get a double-digit suspension, we're back to the drawing board.

Shea Weber Welcomes Brendan Shanahan to Stanley Cup Playoffs

Well, we almost got through the first night of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Just when NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan thought he'd get to sleep without incident, Shea Weber introduced Henrik Zetterberg's head to the glass at Bridgestone Arena.

Let's go to the videotape, so to speak.



No question about this one, kids. Even in the playoffs, and even if Zetterberg is healthy enough to play Friday, that's a one-game suspension.

At least it should be.

Shanahan is in his first year as the head of the NHL's Department of Players Not With The Minnesota Wild Safety. He's generally not done a terrible job, as long as the hits in question don't involve the Wild and he's been extremely accessible and open about his decisions, something that his predecessor was unwilling and incapable of doing.

He's going to have to figure something out here. Quick.

This has to be a suspension. In the video, NBC's Jeremy Roenick compared it to a player using a skate as a weapon. Like this.



That was a two-game ban.

Weber should at least sit for Friday's Game 2 against Detroit. If he doesn't sit, one of the league's whiniest fanbases will actually have an argument for a change. Heck, I'll give them license to crab about it all the way to the golf course after Nashville wins the series. ;)

Matt Cooke Efforts to Become Hockey Player

Contrary to general belief, Matt Cooke can play hockey at a high level. He's been a consistent offensive contributor in his career, and has chipped in some key goals, including in the playoffs.

His behavior on the ice, though, is more often that of a petulant twit, one who can't stand the thought of someone on the other team displaying a high skill level. One who just can't play the game clean ... can't avoid crossing the line and making a headline.

A recent profile of Cooke by Rob Rossi of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review doesn't talk about Cooke refusing to change his style of play. It doesn't reference Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma playing more of the part of "enabler" than anything else.

Instead, Rossi got Cooke to open up about health struggles his wife, Michelle, was going through for a good chunk of last season.

However, from Jan. 2 through March 20, the day doctors cleared Michelle to again attend a Penguins game, Cooke never had a chance to take a breath. His wife, who had four surgical procedures to remove a mass three-quarters inch in diameter that clogged her left kidney's exit valve and infected her lungs and diaphragm, couldn't take a deep one.

Game-day naps were jettisoned for tending to Reece, 10, and Jackson, 7. (Gabby, 18, was attending high school near Bellville, Ontario.) Practices were a brief respite from handling the duties of father and mother while Michelle recovered.

From that experience, Cooke has decided to do what he can to turn over the proverbial new leaf (not Leafs, just leaf).

Cooke said he has reviewed 20 hours of hits — his own and those by others such as Rangers forward Ryan Callahan — so he could learn how to deliver a legal check.

Cooke said his new approach to hitting would have changed the way he approached McDonagh. He could have gone after the puck — McDonagh was in the process of dumping the puck from the neutral zone into the offensive zone — with his stick blade. Cooke said if he "had to hit (McDonagh), I'd hit his hands with my body.

"It wasn't intentional," he said, "but there is no excuse."

Cooke, unlike after previous controversial hits, asked Penguins general manager Ray Shero if he could attend a discipline hearing the next day in Toronto. He didn't try to excuse his behavior before NHL brass, Shero said.

Cooke even sent an apologetic text to McDonagh.

"Matt was still upset for a couple of days after that hit," Michelle said. "That was the difference I noticed. This (hit) bothered him."

She said her health scare and the brief change in his in-season dynamic with the kids provided her husband "perspective."

That perspective, Cooke said, is the reason to believe he is a changed man, that he can play hockey the right way.

He is aware the proof will be in his play. He knows he cannot slip up.

He maintains this Matt Cooke is different.

"I'm sure it all happens for a reason," he said. "It all affects you in one way or another. I can't pinpoint and say when (Michelle) was in the hospital and immediately after hitting (McDonagh) that there was this moment, but ...

"I've got this chance, and I need to look at it as an opportunity to show everybody that I can change my approach, that I can play within the rules. The rest of my career can be proving that it's possible to change. It has to be about that. There's no excuse for it not to be about that."

I'm more than willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I'm just one guy who loves hockey and follows it religiously, and I have never respected how Matt Cooke plays the game. It isn't a recent development. It isn't something that started with the hit on Marc Savard. Or the unpunished knee-on-knee hit on Alex Ovechkin.

It started with his idiotic behavior in Vancouver. He's been truculent throughout his career, but not the kind of truculent I like. It's that over-the-line truculent that only his teammates and fans can appreciate. No one else wants anything to do with it.

If Cooke is capable of erasing the dirty hits from his M.O., he has plenty he can contribute to the game. He is unquestionably tough, willing to get his hands dirty and work hard, and he can skate.

But he has to stop the dirty hits -- and it's not just a coincidence or a series of unfortunate events -- before anyone is going to listen to what he has to say. For now, these words ring hollow with non-Penguin fans worldwide, and even with some Penguin fans.

The onus is on Cooke to prove his words are more than words, by turning his words into actions. It's not going to be as easy as it sounds, but it's a responsibility he must take seriously, because his future as a hockey player might rely on his ability to change a long track record of bad behavior.

(Stick tap: Puck Daddy)

NHL Paved Way for Dirty Canucks to Win

In 2007, the Anaheim Ducks punched, kicked, stomped, elbowed, obstructed, and won the Stanley Cup.

Don't get me wrong. That was a very talented team, led by guys like Teemu Selanne, Scott Niedermayer, and Chris Pronger, and backstopped by the duo of J.S. Giguere and Ilya Bryzgalov. They could play with anyone.

They were also the dirtiest team in hockey.





They won anyway, because the NHL has a long-standing habit of "letting the players decide the outcome of the game" by not calling anything they don't have to call.

When you do go a man down, you can pretty much do whatever you want, provided you don't get caught with too many men on the ice, or shoot a puck over the glass from your defensive zone.

(How stupid is that, by the way? You can practically behead players while short-handed, but don't you dare put the puck over the glass. It's akin to NFL officials letting players get away with late hits whenever they want, but not missing any false start calls. That, by the way, doesn't happen, because officials in other sports actually call infractions in the playoffs.)

This type of mentality -- an obvious league-wide issue -- has paved the way for teams like the 2007 Ducks, 2010 Philadelphia Flyers, and 2011 Canucks to succeed. All you need are a few officiating bounces, and you can win games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Last year, it was the Flyers benefiting from officials turning the other cheek. Never mind that Pronger is a shell of his 2007 self in virtually every way except his ability to be a dirty player. He doesn't skate like he used to, and he's not as sharp a player as he was when he was in his prime. It's called "getting old," and we all do it. Now, instead of using his size to shield players and win physical battles, he uses his size to interfere and obstruct, and since he's Chris Pronger, he gets away with it.

The Canucks certainly have talent, just like the Flyers did last year. The Sedin twins, Ryan Kesler, Mason Raymond (former Bulldog!), Alex Burrows, Manny Malhotra (welcome back), Christian Ehrhoff, Kevin Bieksa, Roberto Luongo, and others certainly have the skill and will to win the Stanley Cup.

Of course, the good is overshadowed by the bad, especially in the cases of Kesler and Burrows. Throw in guys like Raffi Torres and Maxim Lapierre, who have skill but are about as honorable on the ice as a December day in Fairbanks is long, and you have a group that should be killing a lot more penalties than they are.

Instead, you have officials looking the other way while the Canucks cross-check and hold their way through a five-minute major penalty kill, and you have Lapierre diving all over the place while Torres throws a flying elbow that goes undetected by anyone because he was unlucky enough to miss on the attempt. To make matters worse, captain Henrik Sedin and brother Daniel have both been guilty of embarrassing embellishments during this series.

It's infuriating, really, because guys like Raymond, Malhotra, Luongo, and Ehrhoff are talented, skilled, and honest players who just don't pull this crap, and they shouldn't have to be associated with a bunch of guys who do.

Alas, that is how you win, though. It's not necessarily about who the best or most talented team is.

(Though there is no denying that Vancouver is hella talented and very deep at all positions. Very impressive.)

It's about what team is willing to push the envelope and try to get away with more BS. More often than not, teams will get away with said BS, and they'll win as a result.

This is a message you can expect the rest of the NHL to begin receiving. It's a copycat world, after all.

Trevor Gillies Is a Piece of Garbage

After serving a nine-game suspension for his antics in a Penguins-Islanders game that got out of control a few weeks ago, New York's Trevor Gillies returned to the lineup Wednesday night for the Islanders' game against the Minnesota Wild.

Did we see a new Gillies? Would he show some respect to the game and his opponents, or continue to be a worthless, skill-less hack with no redeeming qualities as a hockey player outside of his ability to hold his own in a fight?

Gillies chose Option B.



Was Cal Clutterbuck guilty of a penalty? Yes.

That's why the officials called one.

Gillies, of course, can't just let that be enough. He decided to hit Clutterbuck in the head, then made it clear after the game that he just doesn't get it.

"I went over and finished my hit. There was no intent to injure him. That's it. I didn't think it was from behind at all. I hit him from the side."

If the only thing required to make a hit not dirty was "don't hit him from behind," we wouldn't have a problem here.

But you're not allowed to target an opponent's head, whether you hit him in the back, side, or front.

The only thing worse than a dirty hockey player is a dirty hockey player who pretends to have no understanding of why everyone thinks he's dirty.

Gillies might have that understanding, but he doesn't display it here.

I'm not going to sit here and say the guy should be kicked out of the NHL. If some team in the league is stupid enough to pay Gillies a salary to be nothing more than a piece of trash and a stain on his team and the sport, then so be it.

But Gillies sat nine games, then came back and pulled this crap in his first game off the suspension. The Islanders have 17 games left. If the league wants to send a strong message about this behavior, Gillies won't be eligible to play in any of them.