The tap-on-wrist three-game suspension issued to the Maple Leafs’ Leo Komarov for his elbow to the jaw of Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh at 18:58 of the first period of Thursday’s match in Toronto is simply the last inadequate Department of Player Safety response to NHL headhunting.
The fault, though, lies not with vice president Stephane Quintal and his staff, bound to follow the DOPS’s own lenient precedent, but with both the NHL and NHLPA’s failure to adopt tough measures to combat such behavior.
Here are four suggestions for rules the league should adopt with full support of the players’ association:
1. Restore match penalties for deliberate injury to 10:00 in the box from the current 5:00. The NHL once had this rule, and at least as late as the 1983-84 season, when the Devils’ Bob Hoffmeyer served 10:00 for swinging his stick and hitting the North Stars’ Brian Bellows across the back in Minnesota on Dec. 17, 1983. I’m not sure why the rule was changed.
2. Team coaches should serve sentences concurrently — and with loss of pay — with players suspended for intentional hits to the head. Do you think the Flyers’ Dave Hakstol would keep sending Radko Gudas over the boards if the coach himself also would be subject to suspension? Do you think the Maple Leafs’ Mike Babcock would have talked about McDonagh being “kind of crouched” if his paycheck were on the line? Remember, Matt Cooke did not reform until the Penguins’ organization put pressure on him to do so, even if it came way too late.
3. Teams must play short for the duration of suspensions for intentional hits to the head; e.g., the Maple Leafs would be permitted to dress 17 skaters for the duration of a suspension to Komarov. How tolerant would teams be of employing headhunters if, a) their coaches faced suspension and b) their teams were forced to play short as a result of headhunting?
4. Suspensions should be amended to include additional matching games against the aggrieved teams. Komarov’s suspension will include games against the Flyers and Hurricanes, teams against whom the Rangers are competing for a conference playoff spot. In other words, the Rangers’ direct competition will benefit from the absence of Toronto’s leading scorer. Does that make sense? In addition to his three games, Komarov should not be permitted to play in the next three games against the Rangers, with the sentence both carrying over from one season to another until its completion and the sentence traveling in case of a trade.