Raffi Torres Could Have Been Properly Penalized If Refs Saw Hit on Replay

Justice was served to Raffi Torres and the Phoenix Coyotes after the forward was suspended indefinitely for his perilous hit on Chicago Blackhawk Marian Hossa at 11:51 of Tuesday night’s first period. Or at least, it was on Wednesday morning.

To his credit, top off-ice referee Brendan Shanahan has not ceased to prove he has woken up since he inexplicably failed to suspend Nashville’s Shea Weber for his action against Henrik Zetterberg last week.

That said, as Chicago skipper Joel Quenneville bluntly noted during an in-game interview on CNBC, all four of the on-ice officials failed to penalize Torres on the spot.

In fact, six seconds after Torres left his feet and leveled a puck-less Hossa in neutral ice, the notorious cheap-shot artist was credited with drawing a Coyotes power play. Blackhawk Brandon Bollig nabbed Torres as play continued in the Phoenix zone and aroused a pile-on dustup.

Only then did play stop. And while Hossa was carried off the ice to the hospital, his teammate was escorted to the sin bin for a roughing minor and 10-minute misconduct.

For these reasons, the NHL should make a point of subjecting all injurious plays to immediate, in-game review. Uncertain goals and non-goals are already given the same treatment, so why not the other major column in the scoresheet?

Even if all four officials missed Torres’ indiscretion, video did not. And there was ample time for referees Stephen Walkom and Ian Walsh to look back, figure out why Hossa was down and why Bollig was peeved and make the right call accordingly.

If you want to know what it must have been like to be a Blackhawk at that moment, imagine being an elementary or middle school student in the middle of quiet work time in the classroom. Imagine a bona fide bully seated behind you and pestering your best friend by way of spitballs and/or verbal harassment.

The bully’s behavior goes unnoticed until you cannot put up with it any longer and turn around to issue a sharp rebuke. Only now does the teacher look up from her desk and sentences you and only you to detention for speaking too loudly and disrupting the study hall.

This is not to necessarily say that Bollig should not have been penalized, but the last thing the Coyotes deserved at that moment was a power play and the last thing Chicago deserved was to be shorthanded.

And with the protracted break in the action brought on by Hossa’s injury, the least the officials could have done was investigate the cause of said injury. Gee, could it possibly have been related to Bollig chasing after Torres?

All it would have taken was a stop into the same area they use to confirm or call back a goal. There was no video replay regional and national television audiences saw from home that the on-site officials could not have seen on replay, even if they did not see it as it happened.

Had they done their duty, Bollig’s 10-minute misconduct and possibly even the roughing minor could have been rescinded while Torres would have received his own misconduct, coupled with a five-minute major and ejection.

Instead, Torres was permitted to log a night’s total ice time of 21:44. And for what it’s worth, the Coyotes tallied a 3-2 overtime victory to raise a 2-1 upper hand in the series.

Had Phoenix been subject to the five-minute penalty kill Torres’ actions warranted, only the hockey gods know if the Blackhawks could have altered the complexion of what was then a scoreless contest.

The fact that that scenario will forever remain a mystery to mortals only underscores the gross misstep of justice. And all it would have taken to prevent that was to let technology catch what human eyes initially missed.