Worst Match penalty/Major ever called (Cizikas NYI)

[Chaos]

Exactly why I think the reviews on these should come entirely from Toronto and no reviews should be made by the on ice crew in the game

This 100%

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Cizikas was not making a play on the puck at all

He swings his stick and barely misses the puck. Again I think it's in that grey area so I can understand someone thinking that doesn't really constitute trying to play the puck. For me, with two players heading into the corner I think he was expecting contact.

 

[Kevin27NYI]

Can someone explain to me why in the NHL you can’t hit anymore and need to play the puck? Why is there any mention of “not making a play for the puck”

 

[luiginb]

Awww look at Dumba trying to make himself look like a useful player in 2025, so cute

 

[HFBS]

The most embarrassing thing here is that all the islander fans calling it the worst major call of all time.

That would be a 75 game suspension for Rempe.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Can someone explain to me why in the NHL you can’t hit anymore and need to play the puck? Why is there any mention of “not making a play for the puck”

The part about playing the puck is relevant to Bischel, not to Cizikas. It’s illegal to hit someone who hasn’t touched the puck.

 

[Chaos]

Awww look at Dumba trying to make himself look like a useful player in 2025, so cute

Spoiler alert, he isn’t

 

[Mattb124]

The box score just says “match” without elaborating. There are some technical differences between 5+game and match penalties, but the bottom line is the same: a major power play, ejection, and disciplinary review. If it hadn’t been called a hit to the head, it was a clear-cut interference major+game based on the rule quoted above.

The ref explicitly stated the match penalty was due to an “illegal hit to the head” following the video review.

 

[Kevin27NYI]

The part about playing the puck is relevant to Bischel, not to Cizikas. It’s illegal to hit someone who hasn’t touched the puck.

It’s there for both players, Cizikas can take the body. If you’re skating straightaway and someone passes it through your feet your allowed to hit the player even if his stick didn’t receive the pass.

 

[doublechili]

The part about playing the puck is relevant to Bischel, not to Cizikas. It’s illegal to hit someone who hasn’t touched the puck.

Bichsel swings at the puck and misses a split second before Cizikas hits him. You're being unrealistic. Interference is meant for when a guy gets hit a couple of one-thousands after he passes, or when he hasn't played the puck and it's not especially close to him. Your interpretation would basically eliminate body checking in hockey if it were enforced.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Bichsel swings at the puck and misses a split second before Cizikas hits him. You're being unrealistic. Interference is meant for when a guy gets hit a couple of one-thousands after he passes, or when he hasn't played the puck and it's not especially close to him. Your interpretation would basically eliminate body checking in hockey if it were enforced.

Literally today:

Rempe penalty for being Rempe

 

[SI90]

The most embarrassing thing here is that all the islander fans calling it the worst major call of all time.

That would be a 75 game suspension for Rempe.

You really wanna do this?

Matt Rempe is 6’8 so it’s more than likely he would have hit Bischel head.

Also, Rempire State building (LOL) has already amassed 2 career suspensions for bad hits and he Only has 40 career games played lol

Cizikas in his 14 year career with almost 900 games played has 1 career suspension.

Reflect on that for a little.

 

[57special]

You can get a concussion without head contact from his head snapping. The hit was shoulder on chest/shoulder you are blind. Ftr I hope it’s not a concussion and he is ok.

100%. A concussion can be caused by the brain moving around inside the skull, which can happen in all sorts of ways. Does not have to happen by direct contact to the head. That hit was clean.

As a sidenote, kind of sad to see Dumba reduced to being a guy who has to stick up for Bichsel. What happened, Matt?

 

[Acallabeth]

I've said it many times: the best position on head hits was when IIHF issued a minor and a 10-minute misconduct for any hit with head contact, a major and a game misconduct for a hit with a head contact that leads to an injury.

It has very little space for a referee bias and has a fine middle ground: we often see that a minor penalty seems unfair for a hit to the head that may lead to long-term neurological damage, but a major is kinda overboard.

 

[HFBS]

You really wanna do this?

Matt Rempe is 6’8 so it’s more than likely he would have hit Bischel head.

Also, Rempire State building (LOL) has already amassed 2 career suspensions for bad hits and he Only has 40 career games played lol

Cizikas in his 14 year career with almost 900 games played has 1 career suspension.

Reflect on that for a little.

No need to. It's not Rempe's fault that he's 6'8". Hitting someone in the head and targeting the head are two different things. Will Rempe be an NHL player? Maybe not. But he starts out with 9/10 of a major penalty in referee's heads every game he plays.

For what it's worth, I thought the Cizikas call was a bad call. But the undisputed worst call of all time? That's a joke.

 

[Caps8112]

looks like the intent was chest but he did get the head so its really not the worst call of all time. If you flipped the players youd have both fan bases arguing the opposite way. I know players are used to how they have grown up playing but imo if they are going into a hit and arent 90% sure they can avoid the head than why do it. I dont believe Cizikas is a dirty player so its just an unfortunate result but it was completely pointless decision too.

Now imagine Cizikas were Tom Wilson..............

 

[saintunspecified]

The part about playing the puck is relevant to Bischel, not to Cizikas. It’s illegal to hit someone who hasn’t touched the puck.

We can get into details of rules, but these guys have played their whole lives. And when there's a a free puck, and the paths of two pursuers intersect without either having position on the other, contact is a (unpenalized) reality of the sport. It's even a reality of non-contact sports like basketball and soccer, but it is the norm in contact sports.

I coach youth lacrosse, and one of the most important thing we do is use practice time to help players learn to protect themselves, particularly in these situations because they happen so often. It's actually much easier to teach it to kids in these situations (loose ball/puck) than it is self-protection with the ball (or puck), because some kids get totally single minded/tunnel vision when they have the ball (or puck).

We remind our players constantly, "chill out - they can't score from behind the goal line" for a couple of reasons, and positional awareness and spacing is obviously one reason, but self-protection is the other. Similar reasoning/exhortations apply to sidelines/boards.

It does not surprise me in the least when it's a 6'7" pro who doesn't have the habits/instincts etc. to keep his shoulder closed towards the extended goal line. It is very difficult for someone who is enormous relative to their peers their entire lives to develop the requisite anxiety to protect themselves if they don't come by it naturally. He got hit in the head by a 5'11" player who stayed level through the contact which occurred below the goal line, and came from the expected direction. If a much smaller player lacked such basic habits, they would never get close to playing pro.

There are times when players have no time to protect themselves, or are not in situations where they can know to, or it wouldn't make a difference if they did. This was none of those. This was a routine, 'take an angle towards the puck, don't open your shoulder, brace for contact, and if you get beaten & it rims around the boards, get back into position' situation.

 

[saintunspecified]

here's my only thing here: we're saying "what should Cizikas do here" because the other guy is making himself vulnerable... but only after years of blaming the other guy for winning these mismatches and putting Cizikas into the wall in the past.

Now we've coached these big boys to respect other people in the corners and they are occasionally just eating shots for it. What do you do then?

? I don't really get this. There are some points in this area, but I don't think you've made one. Here they are:

(i) defenders interfering to slow down puck pursuers on dump and chase play *is* a matter of self preservation. one of the things people don't like is that refs do not always apply their judgment in this area consistently

(ii) hockey allows too much contact from players who do not have a path to the puck that doesn't go through another player's back. this situation was an intersection, so that doesn't apply. but imo there is way too much contact from behind in hockey and it's only penalized near the boards. (if contact from behind weren't routine, interference with oncoming puck pursuers might not be so necessary)

(iii) it is bizarre to me that hockey allows contact after a puck carrier has shot/passed the puck despite everyone knowing full well that the player delivering the check knows the puck is gone.

but one v one intersections on paths to the loose puck is not a matter of rules, it's a matter of developmental coaches' competence. i know the game is fast, which is why you don't open up your body up ice when you don't know who is coming.

 

[Toby91ca]

A hit to the chest will force someone’s head to snap back. It depends on the force itself. To say a hit to the chest doesn’t do that means you either have never watched hockey before or have never played the sport at any form of competitive level.

No...it won't. What you are suggesting is literally impossible. If the head is not hit.....a player moving in one direction, who gets hit in the chest, which no head contact, will have his head continue moving forward as his chest is stopped with the hit....which then causes whiplash with the head going back. For a guys head to go back immediately upon contact, he would have had to hit him in the head.

 

[Chaos]

No...it won't. What you are suggesting is literally impossible. If the head is not hit.....a player moving in one direction, who gets hit in the chest, which no head contact, will have his head continue moving forward as his chest is stopped with the hit....which then causes whiplash with the head going back. For a guys head to go back immediately upon contact, he would have had to hit him in the head.

Correct. And this is exactly what happened on this hit.

 

[The Nuge]

He literally does hit him in the head. It’s not the principal point of contact, but it’s definitely fairly significant, so it’s more than a little hyperbolic to call it the worst major ever

 

[doublechili]

Is it relevant at all to the current discussion that the NHL didn't schedule any kind of interview with Cizikas, let alone suspend him?

Nah, carry on.

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

Cizikas had all the space in the world to line this up and get the timing right. He could have gone in with intent to shield the puck and make a play on it, putting a legal body on Bischel as a space-clearing move. He chose instead to ignore the puck and go for a full-blown hit, up high enough to catch the guy in the face. That’s a pretty clear cut major and for good reason. Imagine if players went around blowing each other up just because they were in the general area of the puck.

Intent is always a dicey proposition but I'm on board with this line of thinking. Does the player have time to make a decision on how he's going to make the play? Does the player make the more dangerous-to-the-other-player play? Obviously it's not that straightforward but since we can't fill in all the blanks, those two questions become paramount for me.

 

[theVladiator]

The most embarrassing thing here is that all the islander fans calling it the worst major call of all time.

That would be a 75 game suspension for Rempe.

See a homer, be a homer?