Luckily, though, the Bruins won the game. Here's the situation:
In tonight's Bruins/Canadiens game PK Subban charges and targets David Krejci's head with an elbow. Andy Ference immediately comes to Krejci's aide and tries to engage Subban. At least two problems here: One, Subban turtles instead of fighting back; two, Subban is only called for an elbow on a hit that you could see live on TV from across the ice was a hit to the head; three, Ference is given a double minor for sticking up for his teammate. So what results is a Canadien power play and a resulting Canadien power play goal. Another win for the rats. Montreal and Vancouver thrive on power plays and one of their best tactics is to have certain guys deliver a "minor" dirty hit, knowing it's the type of hit that will draw immediate retribution; and if they don't engage in the resultant fight, they're going to get a power play.
As of right now there's no video clip of Subban's hit. I'm counting on Brendan Shanahan to levee at least some punishment on Subban for a hit that was obviously intentional; and while not particularly vicious, is the type that has caused several concussions. Plus, I need his explanation video for this blog.
Let me interject a quick tale of the tape here. David Krejci 6 feet, 188 pounds; Andy Ference 5' 11", 189 pounds; PK Subban aka The Turtle 6 feet, 206 pounds. While I thought Subban was bigger than that, he's still bigger than either Krejci or Ference.
This is exactly what Robbie's talking about when he raves about getting rid of the third-man-in penalty, and it's exactly why the Bruins are an admired team amongst NHL fans and the Canadiens and Canucks are not.
Speaking of the Canadiens, they had a player who spoke out publicly about his team's lousy play. What did the Canadiens do? They traded said Michael Cammalleri to the Calgary Flames, which is their right if they don't want that kind of truth telling in their organization; but I find it very telling about their principles when you find out who they traded Cammy for. Yes, that Rene Bourque.
Just a quick aside: How can one of the very best two-way players in the league with the best plus/minus rating (except for the two wingers on his line that he feeds) get snubbed for the All Star team? Patrice Bergeron is the Rodney Dangerfield of the NHL.
2 comments:
I happened to tune into the game at the start of the third period and saw it. At first I thought it was a great hip check but then I saw the forearm shiver P.K. Subban delivered on the replay.
I hope the owners are smart enough to get rid of the instigator penalty. Who wants to see people like Subban and Patrick Kaleta ruin the game with cheap shots like this?
Krejci came out today and said he didn't think it was a dirty hit. That's debatable obviously but that's how the Bs approach this stuff. My beef really has to do, like you said, with the instigator. Intent is up to Shanny and I won't go there but it was obviously a penalty by hitting the head and I hope we all agree that deserves retribution, which is what Ference did. My problem is that one guy hits another in the head and the offending team ends up with a power play and a goal. That's the definition of rat in my opinion.
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