Don’t look for the NHL to start making any significant changes on the disciplinary front. All signs point to the league continuing on with doing the bare minimum.
Shane Doan spent his entire career doing sneaky dirty crap and always getting away with it. https://t.co/Qnel5MecLm pic.twitter.com/WjOTIf0RGz
— Adam Gretz (@AGretz) September 7, 2017
What Adam said is true and I don’t see how a Shane Doan hire is going to help punish players who do sneaky dirty crap in the future. Chris Pronger played over the edge for much of his career and his ‘expertise’ in that particular style of play did not lend itself to assessing that behavior and punishing it.
George Parros is another player who has been hired by the Department of Players Safety. George spent his career as a fighter. Now I do want to point out that Parros is Princeton educated. You can’t and won’t attend that university unless you are intelligent. However, after reading some of the answers from this interview it doesn’t look like he will be a positive difference maker in his role either
Also asked George Parros about those who say a goon shouldn't run NHL Player Safety https://t.co/5XV9aK8fSG via @YahooSports
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) September 7, 2017
You said this morning that you wanted to crack down on slashing and “non-hockey plays… in your Department of Player Safety. What did you mean specifically?The department is good hands. All the numbers are trending in the right direction. Suspensions are down, injuries are down. There’s no reason for sweeping reform, but those are two areas I think we can work on – the stick stuff and non-hockey plays.
The problem with the suspensions are down line of reasoning is that the department is in control of that figure. Suspensions being down doesn’t mean that the game is cleaner. In fact, it more than likely means the complete opposite. They are negligent and that is why suspensions are down. There is no reason to give this department the benefit of the doubt.
Is a slash across the wrists a non-hockey play?No, that’s separate. Slashing is something that’s become a hot topic, especially last season. [NHL director of officiating] Steve Walkom said it’s something the officiating is going to be paying attention to.
Again, wrong. It isn’t a hockey play. It is a careless act that players continue to make because there are no repercussions for it. Slashing at the wrist has the sole purpose of inflicting damage on the vulnerable wrist bone.
Also, you are going to get accidental wrist slashes because the league doesn’t penalize the slashes to the hands nearly enough. This was most famously evident when Sidney Crosby caused Marc Methot’s finger to explode last year on a play that shouldn’t be allowed, but is on a regular basis.
So is this more about trying to change behavior than it is suspending for injuries?There’s two things we want to eliminate. We want to eliminate repeat offenders in this department and eliminate the same kind of slashes, although we’ve get to define that. Each play is unique. But initially, I’ll be looking at where the slashes take place. If you’re slashing a guy on the elbow pad, I think that would be different than slashing a guy on the finger tips.
Not sure why location matters. A slash to the elbow or the hands should be a two minute minor. Striking your opponent with your stick is illegal. If you don’t believe me it is in their own rule book Slashing is the act of a player swinging his stick at an opponent, whether contact is made or not. Non-aggressive stick contact to the pant or front of the shin pads, should not be penalized as slashing. Any forceful or powerful chop with the stick on an opponent’s body, the opponent’s stick, or on or near the opponent’s hands that, in the judgment of the Referee, is not an attempt to play the puck, shall be penalized as slashing
The issue here is that the “judgement of the referee… usually means look the other way.
OK, so let’s get to it: If it had been the George Parros Department of Player of Safety, and slashing fingertips was something you’re focusing on, would Sidney Crosby had been suspended for that slash on Marc Methot?No. I was here for that incident, and that was something, in my opinion, we shouldn’t have acted on, and we didn’t act on it. But I would like to get certain slashes and plays [eliminated], and if it happens again, perhaps it’s a fine
The max fine is like $2,500. Why would Sidney Crosby change his behavior? Why would any NHL player change their behavior? It’s simple. They don’t.
You were still playing when Brendan Shanahan started the Department of Player Safety. We both remember there being more suspensions then than there are today. Do there need to be more suspensions?Yes, suspensions were fast and furious when Shanahan first started. But that was a product of reeducating the guys. Now guys are starting to get it. Suspensions are down. That’s great news. That’s the whole point of the department, which is to change player behavior. It’s taking its natural course.
The focus used to be on headhunting. Now the focus is on slashing on the hands. We’re on the right course. Things are good. The game’s in a good spot. But there are areas to focus on
Brendan Shanahan had a better standard in preseason games than anything the NHL has done since. The league would be in a better place if that standard was upheld. However, the league and owners did not want that standard and eventually Shanahan had enough of the role and moved on to the Maple Leafs.
What needs to change for the Department of Player Safety?I didn’t recognize it until I took the job: I didn’t realize how much education we do. And that’s something that can be improved upon: More and more education. We met the rookies at the rookie orientation program last week – 90 of the up and coming class of players in the NHL. We hammered down what we do, how we see things. Certain areas where they can learn to protect themselves, like not putting themselves in a vulnerable position along the boards. The majority of injuries in our game, and suspensions, happen along the boards. So education will be important for us, and eventually I’d like to reach out to even younger players.
Instead of emphasizing the protection aspects of the sport why not focus on the acts that actually cause the damage. I do agree that educating players about vulnerability is a good thing. However, focusing mainly on that part of it is putting the onus on the victim and not the aggressor. It is backwards and why we see the situations that we do so often in the league.
As you’ve said before, the challenge is blending player safety with the physical nature of the game. How do you balance it?Our mission statement says we’re trying to maintain physicality in this game. But at the same time, we’re concerned with players being taken advantage of. We’re not trying to stop good, clean checks, and I think the players get that. Part of this job is maintaining that trust with the players.
At no point in time should the Department of Player Safety be putting their trust in the players to “do the right thing…. They won’t and they don’t. The players aren’t going to police themselves. Stop trusting them to do so and actually execute the job that the DOPS is supposed to do. The players would learn pretty quick and the game would be better for it.
Status quo it is. Sigh
Thanks for reading!