re: Fresh Ice! NHL Season-Long Thread, Part 2

Well, outside of the last two minutes of the 1st period, that was a lot of fun.

Sharks at Pens is on NBCSN in 30.

Pens win it 3-2 in a SO. PK

Good win for the Pens last night, I was pulling hard for the Sharks.

Thought for sure the Pens were done when they took the 4 min penalty in OT.

My lord Brassard is a dumbass for doing that.

Whelp in tonights action, a couple of interesting matchups:
St. Louis needs to beat Vancouver if they want to take 1st in the Central otherwise they'll have to face Chicago in the first round.

LA vs. Chicago: LA needs to win just to get into the playoffs

Tampa / Montreal: Look for this one to get ugly. Tampa has owned the frick out of Montreal this season, winning 4 of 4 so far and outscoring the Habs 16 to 5

That being said, Tampa has a bunch of injuries. Bolts will be fired the frick up after Prust's non-suspension against Bishop. I wouldn't be surprised to see one of their scrubs from the minors try to make a name for himself by returning the favor. I think a key in this game will be the health of Price - didn't he get banged up a bit in the last game he played in? If Tokes is between the pipes.....yikes........

Looks like Doan won't get a suspension for the Letang hit:

quote:

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“It is not boarding, it is not charging, he doesn't hit him in the head. He finishes his check by shoving Letang and unfortunately, he falls awkwardly. It wasn't really even a violent hit, although resulted in an unfortunate injury.”

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says the NHL. The only other call it could be is interference, but Letang was the last one to touch the puck prior to the hit.

That being said, Doan didn't have a reason to hit him, other than he was the best defenseman on the other team. I hate plays like this even though they are legal.

quote:

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Seemed pretty standard to me, just very unfortunate for the Pens and Letang.

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It's pretty standard, but it was a total douche move by Doan.

When you watch the replay a significant amount of time elapses between the time the puck is cleared and the time Doan hits Letang. I hate the Penguins as much as anyone on this board (save Baloo), but all I'm saying is Doan could have avoided that collision and didn't need to do it.

The NHL is run by fricking cowards. I mean, how many players have to suffer massive head trauma before they take the issue seriously instead of just giving us some mealy mouthed platitudes before finding yet another excuse as to why this head injury was different, and this one doesn't merit sanction from the league? There's always a goddamn excuse of "well, there's nothing we can do."

Sure there is. Suspend Doan. Fine him. He hit a player head first into the boards well after the play. And while I realize sometimes bad luck happens, this was not an instance of a clean hit gone awry. this was a borderline hit that went horribly awry, and as such, treat it like a dirty hit. You play on the line, you pay the piper when you tilt over.

Letang is one of the best defensemen in the NHL and this is a career-ending sort of hit. I don't like the Pens, but I don't want them to lose because of a series of preventable concussions. I want to beat them on the ice. this is utter bullshite. The NHL needs to grow a pair and start actually putting some teeth into their head injury rules. Or else we'll see more of this:



Seriously, what about this hit is a hockey play?

https://vine.co/v/OLuHq3MYbhj