Toggle sidebar

Kaleta hit on Richards: Suspension or not? UPDATE: Suspended 5 Games

HatTrick Swayze said:
I get that, as in real life, the damage produced should affect severity of punishment.

But that "hit" has absolutely 0 business in the game. The NHL should make an example of a repeat offender but they won't.
Click to expand...

Regarding the first point -- this is probably what pisses me off the most with discussions about how the NHL deals with player discipline. Not to mention a discussion of "real life" punishments differing based on damage skews one's perspective on how horrible the NHL is at doling out discipline. That said, this "real life" comparison you make isn't even all that accurate, which I'll get to below.

The NHL claims it wants to remove certain dangerous plays and injuries from the game. The problem is that they can give as much lip service to that goal as they want - they simply aren't taking the steps to realistically do that. If they want to remove head-hunting from the game, then you suspend regardless of injury, regardless of star-players being involved, and regardless of history/reputation. The suspensions should be based on an easy to understand and automatic system that is relatively consistent/uniform (i.e. headshot = automatic 3 game suspension; behind the back boarding = automatic 4 game suspension, etc -- and then if they want to add some subjectivity since each hockey play is different, that can come in the form of any "extra" discipline by adding games to the suspension or not).

Until they do this, they aren't actually creating a deterrent for the types of hits/plays that they want to eliminate from the game. By reserving the heavy suspensions for plays in which players get injured, they are effectively telling the other players that they can keep doing the types of hits/questionable plays as long as they aren't left holding the hot potato and injuring someone. That is not how you stop head injuries or dirty hits. And making examples out of "dirty" players also does nothing - because it is sending a message to all other "non-dirty" players that their questionable plays won't be examined nearly as closely. NHL Dept of Player Safety is a joke - and Shanahan is just one in a long line of schmucks to lead it recently.

Why this isn't comparable to how things work in "real life" -- Just one example: Speeding tickets. If police gave out speeding tickets like the NHL Dept of Player Safety gives out suspensions they would only give out speeding tickets to drivers that create accidents because of their speeding/reckless driving. That is not how it works. You break the law and get caught, you get a ticket.

Re: your 2nd point -- completely agree, but knowing Shanahan I'm expecting 1-2 games max, and I'm not even holding my breath for that.
 
SFW said:
Worked out pretty well for the Senators last year.

Stop looking at it in the context of one game and start considering what might happen if the team continues to be so incredibly passive.
Click to expand...

You mean stop looking at the facts of one game vs. your delusions that a tougher Ranger team can be a deterant to behavior of idiots?
 
That's one thing I miss about old time hockey. Players knew, if you did something, even by accident, to a top player, you'd better pull your skill guys off the ice or they'd be the next ones taken out.

Going after Kaleta solves nothing. He won't change and the league won't do a thing to protect your players. Putting a target on guys like Hodgson, Ennis, Vanek, etc, will go a long ways to changing the Buffalo midset.

Now I'm not talking about malicious hits. I'm saying, every time any of those skill guys get the puck, you hit them. Hard. Finish all checks against them, and have guys shadow them all game and let them know they're gonna be bruised up by the time that 60 minutes is over. And let them know they can all thank Kaleta at the end of the game for those bruises.
 
Honestly, if he plays the next game vs the Rangers I don't see anything happening. The Rangers already made him pay by scoring on the PP. Would I love to see a pummeling? of course but this team doesn't seem to do that. But oh what a joy it'd be to see Kaleta knocked out.
 
Bleed Ranger Blue said:
You mean stop looking at the facts of one game vs. your delusions that a tougher Ranger team can be a deterant to behavior of idiots?
Click to expand...

Yes. It's a delusion. Guys like John Scott have jobs on NHL teams because they're such incredibly talented hockey players. :laugh:
 
I agree we need to make this hits less frequent and the only way to do that is to give them a deterrent. Fighting isnt always that deterrent though. Our PP needs to be far more effective. 2 goals in less then a minute is GREAT but with that we jumped from 30th to 26th. If we were making teams pay a lot more they would have to play cautious. If we were able to get 3 goals off of that PP and prevent them from getting that short handed goal shutting them down completely because of one bad hit they would play so ****ing clean on the 12th. The fact is we aren't making them pay on the PP and we dont have the bodies to make them pay with dropped gloves. When given an oppurtunity of a major we need to make these teams realize that one mistake lost them the game EVERY time.
 
SFW said:
Yes. It's a delusion. Guys like John Scott have jobs on NHL teams because they're such incredibly talented hockey players. :laugh:
Click to expand...

Yes, and teams with John Scott on them have never ever had a player take a cheap shot from the opposition. Amazing.
 
I don't understand why everyone is asking for Kaleta's head next game. We all know he won't fight and will just turtle, like the puke that he is. The right course of action is to target one of their skilled players (Vanek, Pominville) and strategically hit them so they miss the next shift, period and possibly game(s), and tell them that they can thank Kaleta for their unfortunate situation. By the way, this should be done when either the game is out of hand or just before the game ends.
 
Kaleta won't fight. Much like Cooke, he takes cheap shots and refuses to fight people. He's a pansy. It's a damn shame.
 
SFW said:
Yes. It's a delusion. Guys like John Scott have jobs on NHL teams because they're such incredibly talented hockey players. :laugh:
Click to expand...

having chara, lucic, and thornton didnt deter emelin from going out there and doing his thing, and even after "getting his lesson" from chara, came out in the third period and kept throwing the body around and doing the same thing that those guys are apparently supposed to deter teams from doing....

Graves94 said:
I don't understand why everyone is asking for Kaleta's head next game. We all know he won't fight and will just turtle, like the puke that he is. The right course of action is to target one of their skilled players (Vanek, Pominville) and strategically hit them so they miss the next shift, period and possibly game(s), and tell them that they can thank Kaleta for their unfortunate situation. By the way, this should be done when either the game is out of hand or just before the game ends.
Click to expand...

thats a great idea man, lets go head hunting and do the exact same thing that luckily didnt seriously injure one of our guys to theirs and hopefully cause some kind of serious injury that will keep them out for an exteneded period of time, and maybe even end their career like richards' could have easily been, really smart idea :thumbu:

im all for playing the sabres hard next game, and finishing every possible check within the rules but going out to try and injure their star players, just because their dirtbag bottom 6er hit one of our guys too hard is just plain stupid.
 
Last edited:
To be honest, I don't think a player as dim-witted as Kaleta is thinking about getting scored on in the resulting powerplay, or even getting his ass handed to him (because hell turtle anyway and has his team to back him up regardless)

This league isn't barbaric like that anymore IMO. You can skate away from it.

If we've learned anything over the past year, it's that money rules. Hit him where it hurts most, in his pocket.

Fine the **** out of him, on top of him suspended game pay. Then a guy like Kaleta will think twice before doing something like that again. Even someone as stupid as him.

Repeat offender? An extra 25,000$ for each game suspended. That should get some attention. So if Kaleta gets 4 games thats 100,000$

I'm sure hell play like the Charmin Bear the rest of his career.
 
HockeyBasedNYC said:
To be honest, I don't think a player as dim-witted as Kaleta is thinking about getting scored on in the resulting powerplay, or even getting his ass handed to him (because hell turtle anyway and has his team to back him up regardless)

This league isn't barbaric like that anymore IMO. You can skate away from it.

If we've learned anything over the past year, it's that money rules. Hit him where it hurts most, in his pocket.

Fine the **** out of him, on top of him suspended game pay. Then a guy like Kaleta will think twice before doing something like that again. Even someone as stupid as him.
Click to expand...

Fining the "**** out of" players is still impossible since it hasn't been addressed in the CBA. I wish I'm wrong, but the fines in the NHL is one of the biggest jokes in the world.
 
SFW said:
Don't be intentionally obtuse. That's not what I said or implied.
Click to expand...

Other than wanting Kaleta's blood and an ensuing brawl, I dont know what you're really saying or implying.

Yes, some teams employ a John Scott. Im glad the Rangers dont. We tried that and it was, in a word, embarrassing.
 
Parker McDonald said:
Fining the "**** out of" players is still impossible since it hasn't been addressed in the CBA. I wish I'm wrong, but the fines in the NHL is one of the biggest jokes in the world.
Click to expand...

Yep. But hey, at least they raised the max. Wasn't it like $2500 last year? That's like $50 to us average people. What a joke.
 
Graves94 said:
I don't understand why everyone is asking for Kaleta's head next game. We all know he won't fight and will just turtle, like the puke that he is. The right course of action is to target one of their skilled players (Vanek, Pominville) and strategically hit them so they miss the next shift, period and possibly game(s), and tell them that they can thank Kaleta for their unfortunate situation. By the way, this should be done when either the game is out of hand or just before the game ends.
Click to expand...

Exactly. (Well, not necessarily to take a guy out or cause injury, but a solid roughing up.)

There are only 2 ways idiots like Kaleta will change their ways:

1 - the league threatens to kick them out of the NHL permanently (which never happens)

2 - his teammates force him to stop when his actions start to affect their careers

Why are the Bruins so successful? It sure as hell isn't the talent level on that team. It's because, if you start to get physical, they'll hit and hit hard, everything that moves in the wrong colour jersey.
 
the max fine in the new CBA is 10K, which is still a joke, i agree players will be hit the hardest in their pocket, not by giving them a couple regular season games off.
 
SwedishBullet62 said:
having chara, lucic, and thornton didnt deter emelin from going out there and doing his thing, and even after "getting his lesson" from chara, came out in the third period and kept throwing the body around and doing the same thing that those guys are apparently supposed to deter teams from doing....



thats a great idea man, lets go head hunting and do the exact same thing that luckily didnt seriously injure one of our guys to theirs and hopefully cause some kind of serious injury that will keep them out for an exteneded period of time, and maybe even end their career like richards' could have easily been, really smart idea :thumbu:

im all for playing the sabres hard next game, and finishing every possible check within the rules but going out to try and injure their star players, just because their dirtbag bottom 6er hit one of our guys too hard is just plain stupid.
Click to expand...

Where did I say that the hit had to be illegal or dirty????
Every player has a different tolerance level. For example, a very hard hit to Vanek, may cause him to miss a week, but the same hit to Pominville may only result in him missing a shift.
The point I was trying to make, was that we should not be going after Kaleta, but one of their better players, like he did to Richards, especially since he won't fight or stand up for himself.
 
Cmox said:
Do suspension announcements take this long?
Click to expand...

There's gotta be some time for deliberation on the ruling after the call. Then you have to remember those videos come out with the suspension announcements, and I figure Shanahan needs at least a couple hours in hair and makeup.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Top Bottom