STACKHOUSE’S 10 WEEKEND THOUGHTS

1 – MY NHL SEASON IS OVER – I, probably, wrapped up my NHL viewing season and maybe my NHL watching career earlier this week when the league decided to make an example out of Mark Scheifele as a means to fix all the missed offenses that should have resulted in harsher penalties but didn’t for whatever reason. Here we have a player that has never run afoul of the league but is handed a 4-game playoff suspension, which equates to about 10-games if you translate it into the regular season. I’m sorry but there is actually plenty of debate as to whether or not this is even a penalty let alone a suspendable offense.

2 – THE HIT – So let’s talk about the offense. I’m fine with charging even though Scheifele isn’t barrelling in on Jake Evans, who ended up landing on his head and taken off the ice on a stretcher. I know we like to slow things down and analyze them in slow motion and I hate doing that because the game isn’t played in slow motion. What I see is Scheifele opting to play the body on the Evans wraparound and he’s hundredths of a second late. Some say why didn’t he use his stick and stop the wraparound instead of laying down a vicious check? The answer is I don’t know but it’s plausible to think a stick check could result in putting the puck in your own net because it was going to be very close as to whether or not the goal could be prevented. Either way, I’m in awe of how many people seem to know what it was that Scheifele was thinking. Unless you talked to him there is no way you could know. Also, is Scheifele not allowed to deliver ‘a check’? Or, only if he knows the result of his check won’t be an injury? Those with good memories my recall a situation earlier this season where Matthew Tkachuk smoked Zack Kassian on a wraparound. It was late and the head was the primary target. Zero games.

3 – ANALYZING THE HIT – Since we are in the business of slowing things down, let’s stop them altogether. There is a very good picture circulating on social media that shows the exact millisecond that Scheifele’s body connects with Evans and this is what I see: Evans is still in the process of scoring the goal, Scheifele’s feet are on the ice, Scheifele’s shoulder is leaning into Evans’ chest, and Scheifele’s elbows are tucked in. The end result of the player is horrific. How Evans fell was extremely unfortunate. Had he just been jolted back and landed on his bum and immediately got up to celebrate with teammates I don’t think we are talking about this at all. It maybe isn’t even charging. In essence, Scheifele is suspended for how Evans fell.

4 – UNFAIR/INCONSISTENT – Now let’s compare the 4 games Scheifele got to the 2 games Ryan Reaves got for his transgression on Ryan Graves last weekend. Scheifele’s hit is a hockey hit during game play in the heat of the moment. Reaves crosschecked Colorado’s goalie for no apparent reason and then after the whistle, realized he had Graves within arm’s reach and went ballistic on him. What I saw was Reaves putting his knee on Graves’ head and it was also revealed that he pulled out some of Graves’ hair. It was also admitted that Reaves was seeking retribution for a big hit Graves put on Mattias Janmark earlier in the game. Actually, the Graves hit should be a 3-4 game suspension too if Scheifele’s is but I digress. Reaves has also been fined once and suspended twice previously in his career. Scheifele, to my knowledge, has no discipline history with the league office. Yet, he gets 4 and Reaves gets 2. Oh, and the Reaves act resulted in a 9 minute powerplay.  NINE MINUTES! But, two games. If you ask me, Scheifele probably got 1 and then the league added on 3 more because of how bad they’ve looked when assessing the Reaves situation as well as the last two or three that have involved Tom Wilson. But, what they’ve done is they’ve turned the entire league into a bit of a kangaroo court. If Scheifele played for Tampa or Boston, there is no chance whatsoever he gets four. 

5 – HOW TO DETERMINE INTENT – One of the better takes I’ve heard on the Scheifele hit was that it was legal, but there was still intent to injure. That may be fair if you can somehow prove intent but almost every hockey administrator will tell you that proving intent without the player actually telling you is impossible. I even go back to the Todd Bertuzzi hit on Steve Moore. Did he intend to put Moore in a neck brace and have him never play again? There is no way anyone knows that without talking to Bertuzzi or putting him in a lie detector.  

6 – BERTUZZI REVISITED – Not to drudge up old wounds but I was on the unpopular side of that one too because what I saw was Bertuzzi and Moore skating up the ice and Bertuzzi telling Moore something (we don’t know what) and Moore ignoring him. Again, unless we ask Bertuzzi we don’t know what was said but it seems reasonable to me that based on the past history with those two teams that Moore had to have known something was coming his way if he refused to fight, which by ignoring Bertuzzi was a refusal of sorts. The one thing I will say is that remembering that night the Canucks, as a team, went way overboard on Moore as just about every single player wanted a piece of him for the entire game. If I remember right, it was dealt with in the first period but maybe not in a successful way for the Canuck players and perhaps that’s why they persisted for the entire night but we’ll never know.

7 – LEAGUE FAVORITES – If you don’t think the league takes what team you play for into consideration, I present to you 2011 and Zdeno Chara ramming Max Pacioretty into the stanchion at the end of the Boston Bruins’ players bench. The puck was long gone down the ice, Chara angled him up perfectly and then dangerously drove him into the turnbuckle, causing a broken vertebra and severe concussion. Intent? No idea. But, the angle to cause Pacioretty to hit it was absolutely perfect and Chara is a professional who knows better than most players in the entire world on how to rub out a player along the wall. Result of the offense – 0 games. Scheifele? 4 PLAYOFF games. Or go search on YouTube the Evgeni Malkin high hit on Blake Wheeler from 2017. 0 games. 

8 – WHY CAN’T WE JUST STICK TO SPORTS – I know some of you are saying ‘Mike you are exaggerating about not watching the NHL anymore’. I’m not. I am seriously considering giving it up. I’m tired of being fed constant virtue signalling where they are so concerned about ‘looking good to the public’.  This is everything from double vaccinated General Managers wearing a mask while by themselves in the press box to Ron MacLean being forced to apologize for a comment I still don’t understand at all let alone understand why it’s offensive, to other various ‘woke’ initiatives that I just don’t have much interest in being subjected to. There is a ton of great hockey out there I can watch and it doesn’t have to be the NHL. I’m not saying I’m completely giving it up but I did before for about 4-5 years before Jets 2.0 were restored and I feel myself headed down that same path once again. Footnote – I am also part of the problem here because I have, in the past, been sucked into these needless social debates when, really….I just want to watch sports. So removing myself from this nonsense that isn’t good for me is the best solution until we get back to ‘sports’.

9 – MEDIA AND MENTAL HEALTH – Last week I wrote about Naomi Osaka, the top women’s tennis player who said she was no longer talking to media in order to best protect her mental health. Tennis organizers promptly fined her $15,000 for doing so and she responded to that by taking a leave of absence from the Tour. An NHL example this week shows just how right she is. When Scheifele put himself in front of the media for questions following his suspension one of the brainiacs in the pool decided this would be a good time to ask about potential drug abuse with Scheifele. The reporter later tweeted out an apology and said he is always learning. No. This is not something you learn when you reach the NHL. The Jets should revoke his privileges. There have been other instances where it’s clear to me this reporter isn’t qualified to be in the job he is and this week further amplified that and yet nothing will be done. My hope is that more athletes like Osaka start to take a stand.

10 – MISSED FRIDAY – Holding true to my decision not to watch the NHL for the rest of this season, I missed out on a very good Vegas-Colorado game on Friday night but I, apparently, didn’t miss much with Montreal-Winnipeg. My guess is that the Jets don’t have a lot of gumption left in them after having it needlessly sucked out by the league office while Montreal just isn’t all that great a team aside from their goalie. Enjoy the series everyone. I’m on to the NBA playoffs where it appears they are leaving the non-sports stuff to the halftime show, which I always skip.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)