Over the past few days we have seen the degree to which the NHL office and their inconsistency with regards to suspendable/non-suspendable hits has made a mockery of all the rhetoric. Eric over at 5-hole.com does a great job looking at every case and that was certainly true in the last few days analyzing the Carcillo and Thornton incidents here: http://5-hole.com/2010/11/05/wheel-of-justice-blog-dont-duck-eh/.
I said here yesterday that I believed the Carcillo hit fit the definition of the types of hits they were trying to remove from the game to a T. You had a situation where a guy leaves his feet, leads with the elbow and goes after a guy who is clearly in no position to defend himself from a blindside shot. You also have the offender as a repeat offender which should have only added to the suspension in which I expected somewhere between 3 and 5 games. The joke was on fans of any team not named the Flyers as tonight Dan Carcillo suited up having received no suspension and the word on the subject is still the referee telling Fedetenko not to duck.
In the Joe Thronton incident I agree a suspension should be dealt as he went to the head, but he was thrown out of the game so maybe 1 more game would have been enough. The bigger joke with the situation is that the league could not accurately explain why he got a two game suspension as word from Joe's agent, his brother, this afternoon was that the league compared Thornton's hit to an earlier hit from Nick Foligno which resulted in no suspension and just a fine. Also the idea that hitting with the shoulder to the head is suspension but a guy like Carcillo with his history elbowing at the head is no punishment baffles me. There is absolutely no consistency in the enforcement of these rules and it is making the NHL offices a joke that is really like pulling a card from a deck and looking to see what turns up.
Next in the deck will be finding out what the NHL does to Clarkson for his hit on Boyle last night.
