San Jose Sharks winger Dany Heatley took a swat at Dallas pest
Steve Ott on Tuesday night. And it cost him with a two-game
suspension. Heatley was punished Wednesday for throwing an elbow at
Ott’s head late in the Sharks’ 6-3 victory over the Stars.
SAN JOSE
San Jose Sharks winger Dany Heatley took a swat at Dallas pest Steve Ott on Tuesday night. And it cost him with a two-game suspension.
Heatley was punished Wednesday for throwing an elbow at Ott’s head late in the Sharks’ 6-3 victory over the Stars.
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His timing wasn’t very good because the NHL has become ultrasensitive to the issue of blows to the head amid criticism that it is not doing enough to make the game safe.
This has been The Season of the Concussion. Head shots and the league’s uneven response to the problem have become a main storyline.
Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby, one of the NHL’s top stars, has been out since early January because of a hit-related concussion. On March 8, Montreal winger Max Pacioretty suffered a severe concussion and cracked vertebra when he was hit from behind by Boston defenseman Zdeno Chara and driven into the glass.
The outcry was so loud when Chara received no suspension or fine by the league that sponsor Air Canada announced it was reassessing its association with the NHL.
This week, head safety was the primary topic at the annual meeting of general managers. The challenge continues to be finding a balance between a new awareness about the danger of sports concussions with the fact that hockey is a fast, physical and sometimes dangerous sport.
“Nobody wants to see people getting hurt,” Sharks general manager Doug Wilson said by phone Wednesday, before Heatley’s suspension was announced. “But we have to find a way to keep players safe without changing the game. The reality is that we’re not going to be able to take all injuries and concussions out of the game. It’s a collision sport.”
Tuesday night was proof of that. The already bitter rivalry between the Sharks and the Stars added a new nasty chapter with several debatable checks.
The Stars were livid about an open-ice hit by Sharks defenseman Douglas Murray that knocked forward Loui Eriksson from the game. Murray also hit Dallas’ Tomas Vincour’s head with an elbow. Then there was Heatley’s elbowing of Ott.
Meanwhile, the Stars’ Jamie Langenbrunner drove Sharks defenseman Niclas Wallin’s head into the boards — sending him from the game.
Ott, an agitator with a history of questionable hits and suspensions, cast himself as an unlikely voice of law and order afterward, calling for better policing of the game.
“I don’t care if Heatley makes $10 million or if Murray makes this, it’s time to get this out of the game as fast as we can and protect guys,” Ott told reporters. “We’ve got guys in there that are going to be icing heads. You only have one brain, so let’s honestly start figuring something out.”
Heatley’s hit, which will cost him $80,645.16, was the only one the NHL deemed to be improper.
The dark side of hockey has been making headlines. It was announced recently that an examination of the brain of former enforcer Bob Probert, who died in July at age 45, showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. That’s the same degenerative brain condition that has been found in deceased NFL players and is believed to be concussion-related.
But as league general managers met in Florida, their proposals suggested that incremental changes are needed, not radical ones, to make the game safer.
The league immediately is beginning a new protocol that includes a mandatory 15-minute break in the dressing room for a player suspected of having a concussion during play.
The general managers decided against banning hits to the head. Instead, they want longer suspensions for illegal hits — especially for repeat offenders — and tighter enforcement of charging and boarding penalties.
The problem is determining what exactly constitutes “illegal.” The league has been accused of inconsistency in the handing down of supplemental punishment. The process has been likened to throwing darts randomly at a target.
After Sharks captain Joe Thornton received a two-game suspension for a borderline hit to St. Louis’ David Perron on Nov. 4, players in the San Jose locker room seemed more confused than ever about what is legal and illegal. (Perron has since been out with a concussion.)
That suspension was the result of a crackdown on blindside hits to the head, the so-called Rule 48, which was instituted this season to better protect players in vulnerable positions.
Still, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly recently noted that “for whatever reason, we are getting more concussions” this season. The Montreal Gazette reported this week that there have been 73 concussions, affecting more than 10 percent of the NHL workforce.
The ugliest incident came when Pacioretty was plastered against a stanchion by Chara, whose sole punishment was getting booted from the game.
But the league is so split on how to address the issue that Montreal general manager Pierre Gauthier said this week that despite Pacioretty’s injuries, the NHL needs to be careful about what it changes.
“We don’t want to slow down the game,” Gauthier said. “It’s a good game.”
But Wednesday, the league drew a line by shutting down Heatley for two games.
— Story by Mark Emmons, San Jose Mercury News
