You can see the linesman throwing his hand up by the players bench for an icing call, and for whatever reason didn't blow the whistle until Hughes touched the puck(right when Hathaway threw the hit), negating the whole point of the no touch icing rule to prevent dangerous high speed collusions in that area of the ice. It's a mistake that almost got Hughes severely injured, and while I'm sure he'll take it to heart that he has to play to the whistle and always be prepared, the real lesson here is that you never know if/when the linesmen/refs are going to do their job and never to rely on them. It's pretty clear Torts knows the linesman mades a mistake too, you can tell with his "please don't fine me" platitudes section of the quote that he doesn't think it was Hughes who made the mistake either, and laments that it's his team that had to suffer for the mistake while couching it in a bit of victim blaming so the NHL doesn't extract 50K from his paycheck.
The hit itself is decently predatory, it's probably at the very least worth a charging penalty even if Hughes is braced. Then again, maybe not, NHL reffing is rarely consistent on those things.
But again, I was arguing against Tort's other sentiments in my original post when he starts waxing on about the players policing themselves(which absolutely doesn't work), and his desire to see the league move back to a big hitting league(which the NHL and it's partners clearly don't want)
It doesnt matter if the linesman had his hand up or not, Hughes didnt see the linesman put his hand up and made an assumption that put himself in a dangerous position - which he said himself. We teach the players you have to be aware
at all times when the play is live.
The hit is the furthest thing from predatory as Hathaway also has no idea if the play is being blown dead or not. He is coming in for contact and is expecting at worst a reverse hit and at best a player prepared for the hit and ready to engage in body contact. Instead he got a wet noodle.
Define a "big hit". Any hit where the opposing player is unprepared will turn into a big hit. Players playing with heads down or unaware of their opponent are going to get hit in a big way. If the league didnt want hitting (big or small) they would ban all hitting. What the league doesnt want are hits to the head or predatory hits, which the Hughes hit was most certainly not.
Insofar as players policing themselves, they cannot rely on the referees to do it as they get more wrong than right which results in unsafe situations. Torts does not want a return to the Philly Flyers of the 70s. He wants players to be able to engage in contact without a fight happening after a player is hit or referees making the egregious mistakes that actually put more players in danger.
Again, I taught bodychecking to coaches and players at 11 years and up for a decade and have Hockey Canada certification to do so. I do not believe that the game when properly played puts players in danger, players do that themselves, and referees have exacerbated the problem.
But it’s a fast high speed game and there will be “big” collisions from time to time. If clean, the league will take them all day long.
