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MacK_Attack

Brendan Smith suspended for 5 games

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I guess Shanahan has a interview with CBC tomorrow about why he wants to ban fighting from the NHL.

Next year there may be no fights in the NHL. NHL is going soft :unsure:

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I guess Shanahan has a interview with CBC tomorrow about why he wants to ban fighting from the NHL.

Next year there may be no fights in the NHL. NHL is going soft :unsure:

I did read a quote yesterday he said he'd be lying if he said they were not evaluating the role of fighting in hockey.

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I think that the suspension to Smith was acceptable. Was it excessive? Not in my opinion. Smith was caught out of position and his shoulder did hit the head. To me, this was a easy decision to make. If Ben Smith wasn't injured, it probably would have been a "rest of the preseason and 1-2 regular season games" punishment.

We all aren't going to agree on this. Some Wings fans are going to try to put the onus on the puck carrier here. Some Wings fans are going to look at the video with their Wings glasses on and try to find fault with the puck carrier or with the punishment. I am a realist, and its good to hear some Wings fans on this board have the same thought process.

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I completely disagree, telling a defensemen to concentrate hard on not hitting a forward coming right at him and challenging him to the inside ice is asking way too much. Hockey is a very fast game and this hit is due to the speed of the game more so then the hitters meaning to head hunt.

This hit should never be held against Smith in a way that would paint him as dirty, this hit was completely legal just a few seasons ago, it wasn't a malicious elbow, charging/jump, slash to the head, check from behind.

I don't know the next time brendan smith is on a one on one situation with an NHL player the last thing I want on his mind is worrying about being suspended if he misses the target on an NHL forward who is doing everything he can to avoid a body check by the defenseman.

Now if he starts checking people from behind, throwing elbows or slashes people then I'd be ok with talking to him about not becoming Matt Cooke.

Then again maybe it's not the worst thing in the world, Pronger has been pretty successful afterall.

I think he needs to be taken out to the defensive zone by Lidstrom so he can show him proper positioning so things like this don't happen. He can hit all the people he wants i.e. Kronwall and Stuart, but don't take bad routes to the player with the puck. he says all he was trying to do was get between Ben and the goalie, well he could have done that by taking a better route and using stick work or forcing Ben out wide and laying on the body. Brendan will learn fro this and next time, hopefully, he'll be better positioned and eliminate the player from the puck with either a good poke check, forcing him wide, or taking the body where he doesn't sacrifice his positioning.

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I think the suspension on Brendan Smith for his hit on Ben Smith, given out by Brendan Shanahan, was further proof that the league does not know what it is doing. Even with best intentions they prove to make mistakes that seem small now, but set themselves up for bigger and costlier blunders down the road.

The worst part of this, besides too many of the same names closely together, is that Brendan Smith had EXCELLENT LEGAL FORM IN HIS HIT!!! The only thing illegal about this hit was under the new rules; he made contact with the head. We all know that there was no way for him to avoid making contact with the head because he aimed at the shoulder of a moving target that moved out of the way but left his head there. When a player dekes with 2/3rds of a second left there isn’t a person on the planet that can avoid making contact when you are going over 20 miles per hour and have a third of a second to move. Even if he did move out of the way, then why does the player get to play chicken and force the defenseman to let him go unabated to the goal? It seems as if the defenseman Smith is taking too much heat on this one.

I don’t put 100% of the blame on Ben Smith, but I refuse to put more than 50% of the blame on Brendan Smith either. I will get to what Smith deserved in a minute, but first let us think about what happened in another situation. When I play hockey, there are times where I put my head in a similar position to try and move the puck, and I have been elbowed. I never once got up and said, hey mother f@#&-er why did you have your shoulder or elbows at their natural level!!!! HOW DARE YOU KEEP YOUR EXTREMITIES WHERE THEY BELONG!!!

If you lower your head, you are taking the risk of it making contact with lower body parts. It is just plain negligent to do so when you know a hit is coming. It could even be considered cheating in the future if you do it to DRAW SUSPENSIONS AND FIVE MINUTE MAJORS!!! We know people dive, so why wouldn't people dive like this?

Smith deserved punishment under the letter of the law, and I just want to make sure that these punishments remain proportional and fair. I will say right of the bat, that I do not believe injuries are required to make a suspension occur nor should they be ignored in lengthening the sentence. I believe the five minute major was a big punishment in and of itself, and I expect that to be called routinely. I just don't want the likely outcome, where the only time the five minutes is called is when the player embellishes or is legitimately hurt. If you are going to call the major for contact to the head, you better do it 100% of the time. The NHL has proven conclusively that they will never be able to do this with any rule.

Therefore it is my opinion that if they use a five minute major that they should count this as a significant part of the suspension. This obviously goes even further with game misconducts or match penalties. Unless they allow clubs to sub in a player for Smith, they are penalizing the team a game right there and giving such a momentum swing that the majority of the time the receiving team will lose. The games the player misses will be easier to win than the one where they get tossed without some sort of adjustment there, so I hate the idea of taking them out of the game. I would rather leave the guy in, and if they have an enforcer on the other team, well the problem will take care of itself. After that you suspend the player for his hit. Otherwise the penalty is proportionally upon the club and fan base for the act. This is heinous when the hit is the fault of the other player.

In Smith's case, he basically received a one game suspension right then and there and cost the Wings a meaningless game. Because of this, I am okay with the punishment being delayed to the regular season for him because the meaning is heavier, but five games is an absurd for a first time offender. This first time offender also had his only offense be that a player zigged when he should have zagged. I would have been fine with a two game suspension of the regular season on par with the other preseason suspensions or a five game preseason suspension. Five games at the start of the career is pretty insane. I know I would never ask for that if I was the one hit. I know, because I have had head injuries do to similar circumstances.

I think the league is once again going overboard to start and most likely will ease off of it in time for the playoffs. The fact that he was punished is not the issue; the fact that he was punished so severely for something I could see embellished in the future is the issue.

I still think of how Marian Hossa received no match penalty in the playoffs for a hit that was identical to Ovechkin’s hit on Brian Campbell just a few weeks prior in the regular season, then went on to score the winning goal that turned a series around. It can be argued that if they called that consistently then Nashville would have made it harder for Chicago to get out of that series, if at all, and the Blackhawks might not have won the Stanley Cup that year. That proves that issues of consistency can have the biggest impact on the outcomes of the entire history of the sport. I do not want another way for inconsistent suspension or match penalty calls to further tarnish the sport.

The league took another step towards mockery while taking a step towards player safety. Can we please move towards a safer league without making it impossible for teams to deliver a good effort? Can we do it taking into account the possibility of equal fault? Can we do it without costing any team from making the playoffs or going further on, due to misjudgment of an incident? Can we please just do it consistently, and not change from situation to situation?

I don't think this first group of suspensions and calls prove that we can. I love you Shanny, but I think you need to go back to the drawing board and figure out a better framework so you don't make more disproportional mistakes.

Addendum: Shanahan explains, that his (Ben Smith) head position did not significantly change. I would like to point out that his head position did change in relation to his left shoulder, which was the target. His head was protected by his left shoulder until he dropped it back and opened his body allowing the natural and pre-chosen trajectory to follow into his head instead of his shoulder. He still put himself into a vulnerable position by moving his shoulders.

This is from my blog.

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My main gripe is that ben smith knew that he was going to be hit, yet did nothing to protect himself. Brendan did not come from the blindside, he didn't charge, he didn't jump therefore I really disagree on the length of suspension because Brendan did make contact with the head that was the only issue with the hit, everything else was text book. So for the NHL to remain consistent they are going o be giving out A minimum 6 game suspension for a head hit, not even including if the hit was late, charging, blindside, or if was a repeat offender. The NHL is goin to be giving out a tremendous amount of very significant suspensions considering the precedent being set by this hit. And I don't have much faith that they will be able to.

These hits are a apart of the game, it's so difficult to line up a player, now any hit that is devasting will be penalized because everyone's head snaps back in real time on impact.

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My main gripe is that ben smith knew that he was going to be hit, yet did nothing to protect himself. Brendan did not come from the blindside, he didn't charge, he didn't jump therefore I really disagree on the length of suspension because Brendan did make contact with the head that was the only issue with the hit, everything else was text book. So for the NHL to remain consistent they are going o be giving out A minimum 6 game suspension for a head hit, not even including if the hit was late, charging, blindside, or if was a repeat offender. The NHL is goin to be giving out a tremendous amount of very significant suspensions considering the precedent being set by this hit. And I don't have much faith that they will be able to.

These hits are a apart of the game, it's so difficult to line up a player, now any hit that is devasting will be penalized because everyone's head snaps back in real time on impact.

That right there is the problem. It becomes more and more part of the game and I think how players have learned to hit when they were younger. If you go back and watch Don Cherry's Rock em sock em videos, you don't see a ton of head shots in those.

Right now, the NHL has a serious issue with brain injuries. They really do need to get rid of head shots and the way to do it is to seriously suspend players that deliver those hits. Back in the day, it used to be the responsibility of the player getting hit to be responsible and not to put himself in a bad position. The hitter had no responsibility....that made no sense at all.

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... blah blah blah.

Addendum: Shanahan explains, that his (Ben Smith) head position did not significantly change. I would like to point out that his head position did change in relation to his left shoulder, which was the target. His head was protected by his left shoulder until he dropped it back and opened his body allowing the natural and pre-chosen trajectory to follow into his head instead of his shoulder. He still put himself into a vulnerable position by moving his shoulders.

I think you (and a lot of others) need to watch the video again. When Ben toe drags, his left shoulder moves forward relative to his head.

Brendan took a bad line to the hit. The suspension does seem a bit harsh, but hopefully he'll learn from it. Not just to avoid penalties/suspensions or to avoid hurting people but to be a better player. A few people pointed out that the hit was just a couple inches from being a good shoulder to shoulder check. But it was also a couple inches the other way from blowing by him altogether and leaving Ben with a clear break on goal. Brendan actually had to lean in a bit to make contact.

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serious hate comming down on shanny on twitter. this is silly, ben smith should get suspended for headbutting smiths shoulder. this is just so stupid. if ur heads down thats what u get! if the guy uses his shoulder it is a clean hit 99 percent of the time. im just distraught

NHL your ******* out! all of you

Kenny-Powers_Mock-Up_thumb.jpg

not sure why there's so much hate toward this comment...ben smith is just as guilty for putting himself in a vulnerable position. there's no longer any onus on anyone in the NHL to protect themselves...it's all about taking a hit in a vulnerable position to get a call. 5 games is bulls*** seeing as boyes' hit was worse and he got 2 games.....2! sorry shanny, love ya buddy but that's BS.

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That right there is the problem. It becomes more and more part of the game and I think how players have learned to hit when they were younger. If you go back and watch Don Cherry's Rock em sock em videos, you don't see a ton of head shots in those.

Right now, the NHL has a serious issue with brain injuries. They really do need to get rid of head shots and the way to do it is to seriously suspend players that deliver those hits. Back in the day, it used to be the responsibility of the player getting hit to be responsible and not to put himself in a bad position. The hitter had no responsibility....that made no sense at all.

It's apart of the game due to the speed of the game, not do to the negligence of the hitter. Now I believe the head hits are more prevalent now because of the shoulder pads, back in Don Cherry's day hitting with just your shoulder would cause more injury to you then anything else, not to mention players back then protected their head more by keeping their elbows and stick up.

The issue with concussions would be solved better by changing the shoulder pads then punishing north-south checks. The hitter still has the majority of responsibility to not be late on the hit, not to charge, not to elbow, not to go too low, not to miss and get beat, not to check from behind etc., there is still a ton of responsibility on the hitter, the person being hit's job is simply not to be hit, he doesn't have to worry about being penalized for any infraction while he's carrying the puck.

I'm afraid these shoulder to head rules will have a negative effect on the integrity of the game, you are taking even more responsibility away from the puck carrier, and putting nearly all the blame onto the hitter. These are also going to be incredibly difficult to enforce by the referees, us Red Wing fans will need to prepare to a). Never see Kronwall hit someone in the open ice ever again, or b). Prepare for him to get a 5 minute major and a lengthy suspension. His Havlat/Heatley hits would put him out for both series most likely now. Eventually defensemen just won't check in the open ice, which will in turn let the puck carrier let his guard down even more coming across the blue line and we will still have the same amount of injuries.

I just think this is overall a bad path to go down for the league, I just don't see the perfect end point in what they are trying to accomplish, they are going to take open ice checks out of the game because the risk of suspension isn't worth it to the defenseman.

Edited by Carman

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