General Hockey Talk - Injuries, signings, factoids + other news from around the league

The NHL is turning into that movie Roller Ball and just wants ratings. The only reason they are looking into a way to reduce concussions is because their golden goose is out for the rest of the year, that's it.

There is nothing being discussed to prevent plays where a person puts themselfe in a vulnerable position. If your kid is playing with matches, you punish him, why? Because he may hurt himself. It's the same principal.

One thing I think we can all agree on: Pacioretty will think twice before Cussing with Chara again (in the OT game).

SpezDispenser wrote:One thing I think we can all agree on: Pacioretty will think twice before Cussing with Chara again (in the OT game).

That's the other thing. If a dog bites you and it ends up ripping your arm apart, ya the dog gets put down, but you were pretty stupid to poke that dog with a stick while it was agitated... you're still bleeding and going to the hospital though.

SpezDispenser wrote:One thing I think we can all agree on: Pacioretty will think twice before Cussing with Chara again (in the OT game).

No he won't, because his career is over

Big Ev wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:One thing I think we can all agree on: Pacioretty will think twice before Cussing with Chara again (in the OT game).

No he won't, because his career is over

Could be. Now answer this. Would that have happened if he wasn't a complete ahole after he scored that OT winner?

NEELY wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:One thing I think we can all agree on: Pacioretty will think twice before Cussing with Chara again (in the OT game).

That's the other thing. If a dog bites you and it ends up ripping your arm apart, ya the dog gets put down, but you were pretty stupid to poke that dog with a stick while it was agitated... you're still bleeding and going to the hospital though.

I agree with you that the hit was fine (see above) but I don't like this analogy at all. Dogs can't think like humans, it's totally different. You may instigate a guy by sleeping with his wife, but that doesn't mean he can kill you!

NEELY wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:One thing I think we can all agree on: Pacioretty will think twice before Cussing with Chara again (in the OT game).

That's the other thing. If a dog bites you and it ends up ripping your arm apart, ya the dog gets put down, but you were pretty stupid to poke that dog with a stick while it was agitated... you're still bleeding and going to the hospital though.

I think this is why they're pushing for a suspension. Chara filed that under 'to be continued' - and then he destroyed the guy. It'll be hard to prove, but there's underlying history for sure.

NEELY wrote:
Could be. Now answer this. Would that have happened if he wasn't a complete ahole after he scored that OT winner?

Pacioretty just nudged him, they're Original Six rivals after all.

Chara went crazy and tried to punch his lights out as if he went after a goalie. Totally unwarranted.

Hoags wrote:Pacioretty just nudged him, they're Original Six rivals after all.

Chara went crazy and tried to punch his lights out as if he went after a goalie. Totally unwarranted.

I agree, Chara took it too hard, but at the same time, we've all played organized sports here I'm sure and I'm as competitive as they come. If I just played a hard-fought game that JUST ended in OT with the other team scoring, you better stay well away from me. Be happy if you want, hug each other, maybe yell loud enough for me to hear, but if you touch me, I'm turning on you.

I assume that's what happened with Chara in that instance.

Big Ev wrote:

NEELY wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:One thing I think we can all agree on: Pacioretty will think twice before Cussing with Chara again (in the OT game).

That's the other thing. If a dog bites you and it ends up ripping your arm apart, ya the dog gets put down, but you were pretty stupid to poke that dog with a stick while it was agitated... you're still bleeding and going to the hospital though.

I agree with you that the hit was fine (see above) but I don't like this analogy at all. Dogs can't think like humans, it's totally different. You may instigate a guy by sleeping with his wife, but that doesn't mean he can kill you!

Dogs react and that's exactly what you do as a hockey player. You react. People saying that these guys should think like they are sitting at a desk are totally ignoring the actual reality. I have yet to see someone at my work stand up and start punching someone else in the face.

I agree you might not be able to compare dogs and hockey players but I also think it's a stretch to compare hockey players while on the ice to everyday people.

Hoags wrote:

NEELY wrote:
Could be. Now answer this. Would that have happened if he wasn't a complete ahole after he scored that OT winner?

Pacioretty just nudged him, they're Original Six rivals after all.

Chara went crazy and tried to punch his lights out as if he went after a goalie. Totally unwarranted.

Why push Chara in the first place? What was the point of it? The only thing that really lead to in the end is a broken neck and perhaps an ended career. So again, why push Chara there? I'm not saying whether it was right or wrong, simply asking the question.

NEELY wrote:That's a play that is made like 10 times a game and 1000's of time a season, this one just happened to end with horrific results it seems. I don't know how much blame you can lay on Chara here.

It was an illegal play -- interference, and he confounded the issue by using his hand to push his head. Even if he didn't mean to push it into the stanchion, his hand should not have been anywhere near his head (should have been shoulder on shoulder, both hands on stick, stick on the ice.

If the play happened 10 feet further down the ice he gets 2 minutes for interference. Problem is it didn't. He made an illegal play in a dangerous area of the ice.

Recall Ovechkin's hit on Campbell. The hit itself was just a tiny push. If it happens at center ice and Campbell falls down, it's 2 minutes for interference (since he didn't have control). However because of the location of the incident on the ice it was called reckless, Ovechkin was labeled as someone showing disregard for the safety of other players, and he got 2 games.

This is an analogous situation, and if Pacioretty has a broken neck the suspension *could* be more.

If you slow it down frame by frame, you can see Chara laughing as Pacioretty falls to the ice and a circle of flames surrounds his head as he laughs. Chilling.

wprager wrote:

NEELY wrote:That's a play that is made like 10 times a game and 1000's of time a season, this one just happened to end with horrific results it seems. I don't know how much blame you can lay on Chara here.

It was an illegal play -- interference, and he confounded the issue by using his hand to push his head. Even if he didn't mean to push it into the stanchion, his hand should not have been anywhere near his head (should have been shoulder on shoulder, both hands on stick, stick on the ice.

If the play happened 10 feet further down the ice he gets 2 minutes for interference. Problem is it didn't. He made an illegal play in a dangerous area of the ice.

Recall Ovechkin's hit on Campbell. The hit itself was just a tiny push. If it happens at center ice and Campbell falls down, it's 2 minutes for interference (since he didn't have control). However because of the location of the incident on the ice it was called reckless, Ovechkin was labeled as someone showing disregard for the safety of other players, and he got 2 games.

This is an analogous situation, and if Pacioretty has a broken neck the suspension *could* be more.

That's not the point I was making. Is every interfearance call made? Does that exact play not happend 10 times a game? Have you not seen a D man make a play on the man in the exact postion and circumstance and thought absolutely nothing of it?

There are so many things that have made this probably the foggiest of all situations I can recall. It's very little black or white and way too much gray. MP's career could be over and IMO, there are a list of 5 or 6 things that could have happened or not happened to avoid this.

SeawaySensFan wrote:If you slow it down frame by frame, you can see Chara laughing as Pacioretty falls to the ice and a circle of flames surrounds his head as he laughs. Chilling.

If you play it backwards you see his eyes turn red, horns come out and you can hear "all hail the dark lord".

No. When the puck is dumped into the corner and the D-man continues to take a half dozen strides to rub the forward out between the center ice line and the blue line it is an interference penalty every time.

“What people are upset in this room is that I guess he drove the elbow through the head with an intent to injure kind of thing,” Cammalleri said. “I don’t think Chara premeditated this, but from experience when a player gets under your skin for whatever reason, you remember it and you notice when he’s out there. You know whom you’re playing against. Especially a divisional opponent because you’re so familiar. You can almost tell by the movements of a player. There’s a lot of tells, from what brand of stick they’re using to how they tape it.”

Weak argument. They seem to be grasping at straws.

I just sat down for lunch and, scrolling through both the CTV and CBC news broadcasts, I see that this story is now 'top story' material. Based on that alone, I'd say a suspension is coming, rightly or wrongly, based purely on the optics.