During the end of last night’s 6-0 blowout in the Stanley Cup Finals, Colton Sissons was given a match penalty for crosschecking Olli Maatta in the face. As Chris Johnston of Sportsnet points out, that means Sissons is technically suspended until the league can further review the incident. This rule is different than a game misconduct, and is outlined below:
21.1 Match Penalty – A match penalty involves the suspension of a player for the balance of the game and the offender shall be ordered to the dressing room immediately. A match penalty shall be imposed on any player who deliberately attempts to injure or who deliberately injures an opponent in any manner.
In addition to the match penalty, the player shall be automatically suspended from further competition until the Commissioner has ruled on the issue.
Technically Sissons is currently suspended for game six of the series, though a ruling is probably going to come down before Sunday’s game. Sissons doesn’t seem to have any intent to injure on the play, as he’s not looking and doesn’t know Maatta’s face has dropped down to stick level. Interestingly enough, another dangerous play had much lower consequences.
- After a report yesterday that the Boston Bruins were interested in Jonas Brodin from the Minnesota Wild, Michael Russo of the Star Tribune writes today that it’s “doubtful” that the Wild makes a deal before the expansion draft. In one of the more interesting quotes of the spring so far, the Wild’s Senior VP of Hockey Ops Brent Flahr told Russo “you’d just rather lose a player than make a bad trade.” That idea flies in the face of much of the speculation around the draft, that teams will be “forced” to make deals in order to avoid losing a player for nothing. The idea that anything is better than nothing may not be shared in front offices around the league, instead perhaps taking their chances in the draft or more willing to deal with Vegas directly than to send a player to a potential rival.
- Darren Dreger of TSN took to Twitter to clarify his feelings on Matt Duchene’s trade market this summer, again indicating that he believes the Colorado forward will be traded. It inevitable that Duchene will be suiting up for another club next season, and it will be interesting to see if he can bounce back from a terrible season. Like when we discussed that Jarome Iginla may have some extra juice left at the trade deadline, Duchene was playing in a situation where almost every single player was underperforming and it just spiraled down as the season went on. If he can get back to the 30-goal mark he set in 2015-16, he could be the biggest acquisition of the summer.
If what Sissons did is what we’re calling deliberately attempting to injure, every defenseman, three quarters of the forwards, and half the goalies in the league should get a match penalty.
I love hockey but the NHL’s obscene inconsistency on this stuff is getting hard to even watch. They either grossly underreact or grossly overreact to everything.
The officiating is bad. I understand your point, but it’s a shame the players as a whole get no protection from the league or the officials. Boarding and interference as attempts to injure happen often and are looked upon with a blind eye.
But Crosby is allowed to smash Subban’s face into the ice? Cool. Cool cool cool. NHL season is ending on a very low note.
Sid the Skid can do anything he wants and get away with it and Pens fans wonder why everyone hates them. Smash the face into the ice, chuck a water bottle, hard slash, cut a finger off and the refs and league do nothing.