Hockey Rant 2011

Forgive me, but it's been a while since I've done a hockey rant.

The controversy du jour is this hit by Matt Cooke of my beloved Pittsburgh Penguins on Columbus defenseman Fedor Tyutin.

Now to the initiated, this may seem like a fairly common hockey hit - and no blood, no foul, right? [cue buzzer] This is an unforgivable hit. Tyutin is a) hit from behind, b) hit too close to the boards and glass and c) totally defenseless, as in not expecting the hit. You can tell because if he had been expecting the hit, he would have moved about a stride closer to the boards and braced himself to accept the hit. [Yes, that sounds silly if you're not a hockey follower, but it's like a running back squaring his shoulders preparing for contact in football.]

Matt Cooke is a good agitator in the NHL. He plays a little hard, bordering on dirty to get the other team mad at him, chasing him, running at him to get them off of their game. He's like [N.Y. Rangers] Sean Avery, but not as yapping. [As far as I know, Matt Cooke has never used the words 'sloppy seconds' in front of the press - but I could be wrong.] Let's call him Sean Lite. Admittedly, Matt's far from being 'Matt Angel. His hit on Boston Bruin Mark Savard last year left Savard with a major concussion that he only just came back from - almost a year later. [Savard is concussed again and for the sake of his health, like the Lindros brothers before him, he calls it a career.] Coke may or may not have tried to go knee on knee with Alex Ovechkin Sunday - it looked to me like Ovie was dodging the hit and dragging his back leg and it was an unfortunate accident that Cooke hit him that way.

But this hit crosses the line - it breaks the 'unwritten code / rule.' I'm surprised nobody from Columbus' team jumped Cooke to beat him to a bloody pulp - either they have a bunch of chickens playing in Columbus or they hustled Cooke into the penalty box so fast no one could get to him. But it raises issues. Cooke was given a five minute 'charging' major [I said 'boarding' when I first saw it - charging means taking two or more deliberate steps to hit someone who doesn't have the puck; boarding is hitting someone two feet or farther from the boards into the boards; there's also checking from behind, which is basically if you look at the player and all you see are the numbers on his back, which is what Cooke would have seen] and has been suspended four games [I think it should have been 7 - 10]. And he will have a bulls eye on him when Columbus next plays the Pens. Maybe that won't be until next year - as we saw in Boston last week when Greg Campbell waited two seasons to get at Steve Ott of the Dallas Stars, hockey players never forget a dirty hit. Oh, and Cooke got challenged his first shift in Boston after the Savard hit, - that was early this season.

My question is "what the hell were you thinking, man?"

First of all, your team is totally depleted by injuries right now - Crosby [concussion], Malkin [knee], Mark Letestu [knee], Mike Comrie [hip] and Kunitz [lower body]. You think that's really a good time to go and get yourself suspended for a while? Isn't this the time that veteran players get to work and show the call ups what it takes to stick in the NHL, blah, blah... Second, you're all ready one of the most hated players in the league and have a rep as a dirty player - though I would not put you on the level of former Shark / Oiler / Bruin / etc. Brian 'Mush' Marchment [who rode Joe Nieuwendyk into the boards in the 1998 playoffs, killing the Stars run that year] or the great Ulf 'I Never Drop the Gloves' Sameulsson. But you're a lot closer to Sean Avery now. Way to go, Matt!

And while I'm on hockey, let me say everyone need to leave Sidney Crosby alone to recover from his concussion[s]. Yes, he's one of the most talented players in the league [and was rocking my fantasy team] but as we have watched players try to return from concussions and their after effects over the last few years [Savard, the once great Paul Kariya who is sitting out this year because of post concussion symptoms, the former Flyer (and I will leave it at that and not call him crybaby) Eric Lindros] we know what devastating injuries they are even though we don't know how we recover from them. We do know that each one is harder and harder to recover from and like boxers or football players they can end careers. So I don't blame anyone for taking their time with this. And for the record, I don't think the hit by Davis Steckle of the Washington Capitals, which we think was the hit that scrambled Sindey's eggs, was a dirty play. I think Crosby got caught in an awkward position and two players collided. Now Viktor Hedman riding Cros into the glass is a different story...

Make no mistake - with 27 games left and missing major components of their team, the Penguins are in trouble. Jordan Staal has been the 3rd banana on this team for four years now - is he ready to step into that first line center role with all the defense focused on his line? Can Chis Kunitz, Pascal Dupuis, Tyler Kennedy and Max Talbot step up and take some of the heat off Staal? Which one of the call ups besides Chris Conner wants to win a job next year and send a veteran like Mike Rupp or Talbot on to a new town? Can Dan Byalsma forge a team identity with a quarter season to go?

And while I'm at it, let me say something nice about the Dallas Stars. Without making any significant changes to a roster that finished 12th last season, the Stars are currently leading a Pacific division in which 1st and last are separated by a mere 5 points. I swore it wasn't all goalie Marty Turco's fault last year. I swore it was a young defense in front of him. I guess I was totally wrong. The Stars have hit a bump, dropping 5 of their last 6 - twice to league leading Vancouver and once to eastern leading Philadelphia in that span though - but they're not hitting the panic button and could really make a run in the playoffs - if they don't fall to the eight seed and draw Vancouver in the first round.

San Jose, who I thought was dead two weeks ago appear to have turned the corner with a 9 - 1 - 1 run. Detroit seems to have hit a mid-season malaise even though they have people returning from injury and should start their annual post season run. The Flyers - *sigh*. I don't want the Penguins to play the Philadelphia Flyers in the playoffs. They are so deep and so dangerous... I will only root for them if the Pens are out and they are playing Washington in the conference finals.