Reaves doesn't have to do something stupid to **** up your stars. He's caught big stars like Crosby, Kane and Toews and messed them up on clean hits.
If Niskanen or Wilson or Dubinsky go after Crosby and Malkin, Reaves is going to go after Panarin, Werenski, AO, Backstrom, Kuzy, etc
He will catch them and he will keep doing it, because he's very good at his job.
Deterrence is a lot different when others pay for your stupidity. **** up a drill, the teams does such suicides. Mess with another teams stars, your stars get bounced.
Eye for an eye. It's the only way to police this god awful ****** mess of a league.
Now that I have educated myself on what type of player he is, from the Blues fans and intelligent Pens fans such as yourself, I have no reservations about the trade anymore.
If we got a Matt Martin, or Clutterbuck, that can also fight if need be, than that works for me. Especially love hearing that he will go after the other teams stars if they mess with ours. Imo, that is the biggest DETERRENT you can have. (if such thing exists). I think players whose role it is to agitate or go after stars, care little if there is retribution against them. They expect it, they know it's coming. Part of the gig. But when you have a player that will go after the opposition stars, in kind, I actually do think that works. (I know it's a different game now, but I remember when Tocchet was on the team. Reportedly, early in a game, there where shenanigans against Mario. Tocchet told the Rangers bench. "next one that even touches Mario, I break Messier's leg". Mario skated free the rest of the game, haha.)
As for the bolded, that is exactly what J. Bombulie mentioned the other day.
"this isn't so much about deterrence, because I'm not sure how well that actually works. Let's call this what it is about. This is about justice."
He mentioned how the league isn't going to police itself, and that frankly the Pens are sick of it. And that if it is an eye for eye scenario, well then prepare yourself. And that's what the Pens did.