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The Minnesota Wild are in town to visit the Pittsburgh Penguins and with that comes the return of Matt Cooke.
Cooke needs no introduction as he is one of the most universally hated players in the entire league.
For Penguins fans he comes back as a mixed bag. Matt Cooke’s time in Pittsburgh was like a sandwich that had really great bread but the meat was going bad.
You start with the first piece of bread which was when the Penguins acquired Cooke. The Penguins parted ways with pest Jarkko Ruutu and replaced him with a better hockey player in Matt Cooke. Cooke helped form the best 3rd line in hockey for the 2008-2009 season which also included Jordan Staal and Tyler Kennedy. Cooke’s addition was part of the perfect recipe which led to the Penguins winning their first Stanley Cup since the 1991-1992 season.
The meat part of his tenure was muddled with poor choices on the ice and the suspensions that were a result. Cooke’s blindside elbow to the head of Marc Savard was the catalyst for Savard’s eventual retirement. The hit was technically legal at the time, but no less disgusting. It was that hit that made the NHL start to think about their contact to the head policies.
Cooke was not suspended for the Savard incident, but he was suspended for boarding Fedor Tyutin from behind. Cooke missed 4 games for that poor choice.
Unfortunately for Ryan McDonagh, Cooke was not done delivering bad hits. McDonagh was on the wrong end of another brutal hit to the head from Cooke. This event caused the league to come down hard on Cooke. Cooke missed the final 10 regular season games and then the entire 2011 playoffs (7 games).
The league had enough of his shenanigans; the Penguins were also tired of his shenanigans.
Instead of defending their own player GM Ray Shero said the following:
"That is exactly the kind of hit we're trying to get out of the game."
Cooke was also told by team officials in no uncertain terms that his play was unacceptable.
Cooke issued an apology and at the time it was viewed like most player apologies, don’t tell me, show me.
“I realize and understand, more so now than ever, that I need to change."
This is where the other slice of bread from the sandwich comes into play.
Instead of making excuses for dirty play the Penguins took an active role in trying to rehab Matt Cooke. It would have been easy to cut him and move on. Instead there were hours and hours of video sessions with Coach Dan Bylsma that studied different hitting situations and how to not engage recklessly.
"The way I played before was to get the biggest hit possible every time no matter what, and that now certain situations, I just approach differently. I try to get the puck more than I did before."
The good that came from the Cooke situation was the creation of a rehabilitation template. The league and Penguins provided a process on how to rehab a player who was consistently dirty. There were some key factors led to Cooke’s rehabilitation. The first was that the league actually came down hard and issued an extreme suspension. The second was that the team that employed the player did not call it a clean hit, make excuses and defend said player. The third was that the team became actively involved in the re-education process for that player.
As you can see from recent events in the NHL, this template has not been followed at all. Suspensions are light, owners and GM’s are calling vicious hits “clean…, and the fact that we are talking about multiple suspensions each night is proof.
Both the Department of Player Safety and the 30 NHL teams need to remember how Matt Cooke was rehabbed into a more responsible player. The template is there, but nobody is using it.
Stiff suspensions and teams not protecting their players publicly is the core of the solution.
Lastly, Matt Cooke’s change boils down to one major philosophy. It is a philosophy that every player has the ability to abide by:
Hit for puck possession, not to inflict bodily harm.
If players are hitting for the sole purpose of acquiring the puck, then it won’t matter if a player turns at the last second or that a player has his head down. Borderline hits get cut down drastically and so do the major injuries.
Nothing can change the health ramifications that resulted from Matt Cooke’s dirty hits, but what can be changed is how the league and its teams handle dirty players moving forward.
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As for Matt Cooke the hockey player, let’s take a look at what the Penguins are missing out on and what they currently have in place of Matt Cooke:
As we see all the Penguins are positive possession players with the exception of Tanner Glass. Matt Cooke has the lowest possession rating on this chart.
Here is the definition for FF% rel:
Fenwick for percentage relative to team's FF% with player not on ice
The players with the lowest percentage are Tanner Glass and Matt Cooke.
Encouraging about this chart is just how good Jayson Megna looks. Megna is amongst the leaders in each statistical category from the chart. Moving forward he could become a cheap quality option for the Penguins third line. As has been discussed before in this blog; Megnatron has size, speed, and a willingness to battle for the puck. He also has pretty decent puck skills to go along with those other traits.
Matt Cooke provided great third line play but with the artificially lowered salary cap and the remaining presence of his reputation penalties, it was time for the Penguins to move on.
Hopefully Jayson Megna can provide the quality third line play that Matt Cooke gave the Penguins minus all of the nonsense.
Thanks for reading!
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