NHL Update: No discipline for New York Rangers' Marc Staal
Despite the ruckus recently made in the NHL regarding players safety and in particular, hits to the head, no one is really sure where to draw the line. It has only gotten more confusing after the NHL decided not to penalize New York Rangers' defenseman,
Marc Staal for a hit on Calgary Flames' centre, Matt Stajan.
The hit left Stajan reeling in the centre of the ice. He was flung back as Staal checked him and struggled to get back on his feet. Stajan was clearly shaken up by the hit. He was passing the puck to his left as Staal moved in on him from right and didn’t
see the defenseman. Caught completely off guard and with his head turned to the left, Stajan crashed his face into Staal’s shoulder. Or was it the other way around?
Staal approached Stajan with his knees bent, but in the final moment, he put all of his lower body strength into his shoulder and rocked Stajan out of his senses. Stajan was handling the puck and had his head and defences lowered. That means that the concussion
inducing, game ending hit to Stajan’s head was entirely his own fault. That is the league’s decision. During the game, Staal did not draw a penalty and the NHL reviewed the play and said that it was a completely legitimate hit.
The league disciplinarian, Colin Campbell emphasized that it was indeed Stajan who was to blame and the hit was clean. “We don’t want to give a false sense of security they can carry the puck with their head down,” Campbell said. In Stajan case that means
‘with their head turned to the left’ but it’s pretty much the same thing anyway. Campbell added that the league wanted to reign in hits that could cause concussions but did not want to eliminate hitting from the game.
Campbell said that the hit didn’t fit the infamous rule 48 which deals with blindside hits to the head. It didn’t fit the criteria because the hit wasn’t blindsided. “(Stajan) was going north and south, and Staal was defending, so there was no blindsiding,”
Campbell said. He didn’t have any illusions about the severity of the hit. It was indeed a violent hit to the head but was legal. In a frame by frame review of the hit, the league determined that it was too difficult to conclusively prove that Staal led the
hit with his shoulder or that the head was the principle point of contact.
“I bent my knees, my elbows didn't come up,” Staal said after the game. “I stayed low. I caught most of it on my side more than anything else.” That’s all well and good except Staal didn’t actually stay low. The replays show him compressing his legs and
springing up.
Granted that it is still difficult to prove Staal’s culpability in the play but there is little doubt that the head was the point of contact. The replay might not show everything but it clearly shows how violently Stajan’s head gets thrown back, followed
by the rest of his body too. The way Stajan stumbled on the ice clearly shows that his head was roughed up badly, even if by an accident and without malice.
The league has handed out a number of fines and suspensions but draws the line on the Staal hit. “Hockey is a tough, physical game, and hitting is one of the attractions,” Campbell said. He is right on that one. Hockey fans want to see skaters crash into
each other. It is part of what makes Hockey, Hockey. The league is trying to find the right balance between making the game safe and making it boring.
The line gets blurry sometimes.
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