NHL Playoffs: Raffi Torres Hit Not a Penalty, Not Worthy of a Suspension

The Canucks are now up 3-0 on the Blackhawks and can attempt to sweep their playoff rivals on Tuesday.

But they might have to make that attempt without Raffi Torres.

You've probably already seen the hit, but if you haven't, here is the CBC feed from the game.

The Hawks are calling for Torres to be suspended.

It isn't exactly in his favor that he is just returned from a four game suspension for hitting Jordan Eberle of the Oilers—a suspension I thought was too harsh, given the suspensions handed out before and after.

But let's look at this hit, because I don't think it is worthy of suspension. And it shouldn't have even been a penalty except for the reputation call on Torres.

The puck is rung around behind the net. Seabrook is coming at it from one side, Torres from the other.

Seabrook decides to look behind and to the side as he tries to corral the puck, his body skating parallel to the goal line as he looks in the direction of the boards.

In other words, he was doing an Eric Lindros impersonation.

Torres delivers a shoulder to head hit that levels Seabrook. The puck was there on Seabrook's stick.

How is this even a penalty?

Yes, the league is cracking down on head shots, but there isn't a penalty in the book that covers this.

The referees called a penalty right away, but all four officials had to meet and talk it over for a bit before making the final call.

I imagine the conversation went like this:

"

Was it elbowing? No. Torres hit with his shoulder.

Was it charging? No. He didn't leave his feet until after the initial impact when they both went down.

Was it boarding? No. 

Crosschecking? No.

Spearing? No.

Roughing? hmm... maybe.

Well, we have to call something. 

Interference? Yeah, go with that.

"

Can someone please explain to me how it is interference to hit a man with the puck?

The league really needs to make up a new penalty category for hits to the head, because this call was just garbage.

The best justification for a penalty they could come up with was interference?

As for a suspension, while I don't think this deserves one, you never know with the NHL's inconsistency with this subject.

It doesn't match any description for a penalty in the rulebook. And while it could be classified as a blindside hit under the new rules, which is punishable by supplemental discipline but not in game penalties, I don't think it qualifies.

The key point here is that Torres and Seabrook were skating directly towards each other.

They were facing each other head on IF Seabrook hadn't of decided to have a brain cramp and look away from the oncoming forechecker. 

It wasn't a hit from the side, behind or at any sort of angle. It was (pardon the pun) a head to head collision between two big guys in a fast, physical playoff series.

Given the two suspensions in the playoffs thus far, (Bobby Ryan and Jarret Stoll) I don't think this is even worthy of one game. But I wouldn't hold it against Campbell to make a rep call to appease the Hawks, since it won't affect the series outcome anyways.

Stoll got one game for his hit on White, which was an actual penalty (probably worth a major) that was missed during the game.

Torres got a bogus penalty, which doesn't make sense at all given the rules as written in the NHL rulebook and the Canucks gave up a goal because of it.

I think that was punishment enough.