Hickey absolutely demolishes Drouin. pic.twitter.com/e09PfEFrpQ
— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) May 4, 2016
It's another night of playoff hockey. Which means anther head shot has created an uproar on hockey Twitter.
Slippery Tampa forward Jonathan Drouin has been a thorn in the side of opponents in the first and second rounds of the playoffs. Drouin plays the game at a high pace and is not afraid to get in the goalie's face. He has been playing with a tremendous amount of confidence in the Bolts-Islanders series.
On Tuesday night, Drouin was dropped in his tracks by heavy, high hit by Brooklyn Islanders defenseman Thomas Hickey.
It was a bang-bang hockey play. A high speed collision.
Twitter blowhards and keyboard tough guys will say that Drouin got what he deserved for having his eyes down and on the puck.
I say B.S. Drouin had the puck. He is allowed to shift gears and drive to the middle of the ice. Hickey could have read Drouin's change of direction and targeted his shoulder rather than his face.
As you can see from the gif above, Drouin was dropped like a bad habit by the thunderous hit head hit by Hickey
Personally, I don't like the hit. I'm not a fan of the defender driving his shoulder into the squash of Drouin. One of these decades, the NHL will finally enact and enforce a zero tolerance rule for head hits. Deliberate dome hits and otherwise. There has to be a new standard for head contact: If you touch an opponent's head, you are going to be called to a hearing with the NHL Department of Player Safety. Zero tolerance. No negotiations. No interpretations. No excuses. Maybe the lawyers of players involved in the NHL class action concussion lawsuit will be the agents of change. Litigation and multi-million dollar lawsuit settlements have a way of getting the attention of professional sports executives.
The Islanders actually ended up with a power play from the kerfuffle. Hickey’s blast to Drouin's dome didn't even earn a minor penalty.
Drouin spent a considerable amount of time in the quiet room as he was being observed by team medical personnel.
Drouin came back to the Tampa bench midway through the third period.
Drouin got the last laugh on Hickey and the Isles when he assisted on Nikita Kucherov's game tyng goal in the dying moments of regulation play.
In a touch of irony, Brian Boyle scored the OT GWG at the 2:48 mark of the overtime session.
Boyle decked Hickey at the Islander blue line to begin the game winning goal play sequence. The Boyle check on Hickey appeared to be a high hit. However, the referee did not issue a penalty to Boyle.
The referee set that standard of no penalty no call when he turned a blind eye to the Hickey shot on Drouin earlier in the game. Had the ref called that penalty then he would have had to uphold it on the Boyle hit on Hickey.
Allegedly.
This is a perfect example of what happens when a referee chooses not to penalize a player for his aggressive actions. We see it time and time again that the opponent pushes back and commits a similar infraction. To which no penalties are handed out.
On the scoring sequence on the game-winning goal, the puck started high and worked down low, where it found Boyle camped to the right of the Brooklyn goalie Greiss, who was late to get over to challenge Boyle on the game winning goal.
After the game, Isles head coach Jack Capuano complained about the Boyle hit on Hickey in overtime on the game-winning goal. It sounds like capuano wants boil to be suspended for that guy hit on his defensemen.
Tampa coach Jon Cooper feels the same way about the Hickey hit on Drouin. Blame the referee for swallowing his whistle on both of those penalty calls.
Tampa leads the series two games to one.
***