Sabres winger Pat Kaleta spoke with Sabres.com at the team hotel in Raleigh today. Ron Rolston scrapped the 1:15pm team practice to give his troops some well deserved R-n-R.
Kaleta briefly answered questions.
“I’m going to keep it as limited as possible. I’m just sorry for the position that I put the team in, trying to kill that ( 5 minute) penalty. Ya know, I feel for that---putting the penalty killers out there and them (Rangers0 getting the two (PP) goals. Makes me feel like a bag of garbage after seeing that. I’m glad that our team responded like that, I’m proud of it, and I’m just going to go forward”.
Asked to describe what exactly happened on the Brad Richards hit, Kaleta responded:
“I was on the penalty kills, so on the penalty kills, you’re playing a zone. You’re not really supposed to finish your checks, etc. I was just playing hard. I was on the penalty kill, just trying to do my job”.Kaleta defended himself from some of the harsh criticism leveled against him by the Rangers players and head coach following Sunday night’s 3-2 shootout loss.
“I have changed my game. I know I have, and I know players have seen that and referees have come up (to me and said “I respect what you’ve done so far, so long as you keep showing that respect towards that we’ll respect you” and I’ve loved hearing that , knowing that they’ve seen a change in my game”.
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Updated 8:20 am:
Confirmed by NHL:
Sabres winger Pat Kaleta wuill have a 3pm phone hearing with the NHL Department of Player Safety regarding his hit from behind on Ranger centre Brad Richards.
Kaleta can receive no more than a five game suspension as the hearing is being conducted over the phone. If the NHL wantes to impose more than a five game ban for the hit, Kaleta will have to have his hearing in peroson.
Kaleta was tossed from the game and given a five minute checking from behind penalty.
The Kaleta crossed the line of being safe. It was a wreckless act. If a Sabre player was hit by an opponent like that, the people of Pegulaville would be outraged, and rightly so.
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Sabres winger Patrick Kaleta has a reputation around the NHL of being a robust competitor. He hits hard. He plays hard. Thats why his opponents can't stand playing against him. They'd much rather be his line mate than his crash test dummy.
On Sunday night, inside Madison Square garden, before the eyes of the hockey world, Kaleta committed an error when he hit Ranger Brad Richards from behind, sending the skilled forward falling head first into the wall.
In my opinion, Kaleta has to know better than to free lance like that. He and the Sabres were on the PK, trying with all their might to defend their slight one goal lead in the third period when the incident took place. In an instant, Kaleta made an error in judgement and he hit Richards from behind.
I don't doubt for one second thet Richards was feeling the ill effects of the hit. For those arm chair analysts who have never played the game of ice hockey, let me remind you that it doesn't take much impact in order to send an opponent flying into the wall when he has his back to you. Just a simple xross check to the sacral region of the lower back will cause the hitter to send the hitee flying.
Listen. The Kaleta play is the type of play that the NHl are looking to abolish. was it the worst hit from behind that has ever been perpetrated in the NHL? No. Sadly, there are worse ones on the record from over the years and there are worse ones to come.
In my opinion, Kaleta will get a suspension for the hit on Richards. I thin kthat the one mitigating factor is that he has a reputation at the NHL discipline office level, having been warned and suspended in the recent past. The Sabres play the rangers in Buffalo on March 12 and I'm certain that the Rangers and the NHL do not want Kaleta to play in that game so as to avoid future discipline issues.
Speaking of reputations, lest we forget that Richards has a history with concussions in his long, illustrious NHL career.
Rangers head coach John Tortorella's is looking for a glimmer of hope in an otherwise mediocre season for his team. His recation to the hit suggests that he's looking to use the Kaleta-Richards incident as a rallying cry for his team for the rest of the truncated season. Lets see if it works.
Lets wait and see what Brendan Shanahan has to say this morning about the Kaleta-Richards incident.
"You want to hurt them. We were able to get two, but it doesn't do that kind of hit any justice. I played against him in juniors. He does a lot of those hits, cheap shots, and a lot of times he doesn't back it up. He either gets kicked out and you don't see him for a month or the rest of the game he sits on the bench."
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