NHL Playoffs

[slotdirt]

Originally Posted by Danzig

he left his feet because he launched himself, made a vicious hit, and an illegal hit. i love hockey, love the physicality of it, and the hard, LEGAL hits. this was definitely beyond the boundaries, and he was given the appropriate punishment. i don't think there's a difference, or a reason to make any type of judgement as to why he left his feet. he left them, hit a guy who wasn't on the puck anymore.

I said from the get-go that the guy deserved games for a clearly dirty hit. That being said, I'd much rather a guy try to make a big play like Rome did the other night than do what Matt Cooke or Steve Downie do with regularity, i.e., turn into a human missile.

I stand by the statement that if Horton still has the puck, that's 100 percent, absolutely a legal hit. At some point, the onus has to be on the player with the puck to be somewhat aware of his surroundings. Rome hit him with a shoulder in the open ice - if that is the kind of hit we're trying to get rid of in hockey, then the NHL might as well ban checking in general.

Three youtube videos were posted before of perfectly legal hits of a similar ilk to what Aaron Rome did the other night with the only significant difference being that the players in those videos has the puck whilst Nathan Horton didn't. There's a big difference between hitting to kill (see: Matt Cooke on every shift) and trying to make a big hit and epicly failing in its timing (see: Aaron Rome in game three). Rome deserved the suspension, but for the result rather than the intent.