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If You Can't Take the Hit . . .

February 19, 2019, 9:21 AM ET [9 Comments]
Jay Greenberg
Blogger •NHL Hall of Fame writer • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The goons are gone, replaced on average by at least one compact player per team, small factor in scoring being on the rise again, thank goodness. The officials do more policing than the players, the intention, for better or worse, when the NHL went to two referees and cracked down on obstruction.

As a result, almost as much time passes between Jacob de la Rose goals as between good, clean, bone rattling, hits. Tom Wilson is an anomaly in today’s league and as for Matt Cooke, he is believed to be living in semi-seclusion in Northern Quebec since the unfortunate Denny Pratt tragedy. Fans of a certain age have learned to accept that safety has to come first. The result has been a faster, more skillful game, at least when Jori Lehtera isn’t playing it.

The NHL has become clean as a whistle, with much less pushing and shoving between the whistles. There’s a lot to like about the NHL in 2019, those of us addicted to it not really having much choice.

Alas, there is a price to be paid for fewer prices having to be paid. For old timers who knew exactly what Keith Allen, the late, great, architect of the Broad Street Bullies, was talking about when he would acquire players who provided that “certain element,” it is a sad state of affairs that in today’s league, Evgeni Malkin passes for a villain.

So one would think we dwindling goons in the press box would be heartened by an increasing development in the sanitized game: The obligatory response to the clean, hard hit.

Except that we’re not.

Saturday in Pittsburgh occurred a typical case. Calgary’s Austin Czarnik, the puck in close proximity but not in his possession, was caught with his head down by the Penguins’ Marcus Pettersson. Already off balance, Czarnik tumbled into the boards.

Arguably interference. Inarguably clean contact.

Once upon a time, even when the dinosaurs roamed the ice, the recipient of a good shoulder-to-shoulder check would get up and just rejoin the play. The only response by his teammates would be when he got back to the bench in the form of, “That will teach you to keep your head up, rookie!”

This time, sign of these times, Sam Bennett went after Pettersson, engaging him in a fight, such as it was, and drawing an instigator penalty, all in the name of team unity. “I didn’t like the hit.” Bennett said. “I didn’t think Czarnik touched the puck.

“Anytime I see one of my teammates getting hit like that, there has to be a response.”

Bennett was backed up by Flames coach Bill Peters. “I didn’t like the hit,” he said. An understandable stance for a coach to take because he’s dead in the job if the players don’t think he has their backs. But with two minutes lost to the Calgary attack and Sidney Crosby coming over the boards to make you pay for your camaraderie, was this reaction smart?

Three weeks ago at Madison Square Garden, then-Flyer Christian Folin caught Brady Skjei similarly with his head down. Onto his butt Skjei went, none the worse for wear. To a rescue hardly needed came Boo Nieves, hell-bent on being called for instigation with his team down a goal in the third period. A scrap followed. The Rangers may have liked each other more than ever, but they still lost the game.

You may ask why someone complaining about the evaporating passion in today’s NHL has a problem with a player sticking up for a teammate.

Because it discourages good, clean, body checking, that’s why.

There is not enough of it in the game and probably even less now that a player has to pass on a hit if he doesn’t want to have to answer for it. That should not have to be the case. Holy Glen Cochrane, when did clean become mean?
Take a check, boys, and go about your business. Be a man, not a liability, particularly in the third period of a close game.

“We teach the players from the day they start to initiate, not react,” said Oiler coach Ken Hitchcock. “The NHL is a league where you have to play through stuff.

“There is too much retaliation. If it’s dirty, usually there is a mechanism on your team for knowing how to react.”

Part of the problem of course, is the instant determination of what is clean or not, starting with an officials’ call unaided by replay. And a lot depends on who is getting pounded and by whom. It may be less of a jungle out there, but would-be Tarzans still are being brought up to come swinging to the rescue on vines.

“There are clean hits that are dubbed dirty hits and that’s not right,” said Drew Doughty. “But if a star is going to get hit, whether it’s clean or not, you are going to go after the guy. That’s the bottom line, going back to the old days.

“Hit a fourth line player, nobody is coming after you because the fourth line guy can usually stand up for himself.”

Once upon a time fourth line guys had to hit and take a hit to stay in the league. Now skating will do, thank you very much. If you see a chance to discourage somebody with a good ‘ol slobberknocker, you’d better be ready to fight and risk the chance of taking yourself off the ice and hurting your team.

This is logic even more twisted than were Bryan Marchment’s thoughts on his meanest day. Physicality–already on the endangered list– takes another powder puff to the face.

“I’m all in favor of clean, hard-hitting, hockey,” said Canucks coach Travis Green. “That’s been in the league a long time.

“When it’s a clean hit, I don’t see the need for a fight but there is a time and place for everything. Depends on the player, the player you are playing against, and the (game) temperature. It’s an emotional game.”

Saturday in Philadelphia, with the Flyers hanging on by a goal in the third period, Claude Giroux tried to eliminate Anthony Mantha, who got angry and dangerously threw the Flyer star into the boards.

Radko Gudas, recovering psychopath, clean now for more than two years, started to menace Mantha with a stick and then wisely thought better of it. Play continued. Conveniently the Flyers and Red Wings had a return match the following day in Detroit, where, in the first period Wayne Simmonds challenged Mantha to a scrap, the way it’s always been done. And the way it should be done.

Too often anymore it is not. Somehow, body checks have become more offensive than the Oilers’ draft record, harder to swallow than Hurricanes’ post-game whoopee past Don Cherry’s starched collar. Hitting is taking another hit.
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