Breaking Down the Ugly Hits in the 2016 NHL Playoffs and the League's Response

One of hockey's defining characteristics is its physical nature, and for the NHL, that has always been both a selling point and a source of controversy.

The league sells hard, fast, physical hockey and presumably has no desire to change that. However, the NHL also has a responsibility to protect its players and provide an environment where injuries are at least somewhat avoidable. Over the years, the league has tried to walk a fine line between preserving the health of its star players and not compromising the ructious nature of the game.

It's difficult to navigate those competing priorities in the regular season, but it becomes even harder in the playoffs. The referees on the ice and the officials levying supplementary discipline, share an understandable desire not to influence games or series, but to leave them in the hands of the competing players and teams.

All too often, this results in a hands-off approach and a style of play that would not be tolerated even during the regular season.

To illustrate this point, this slideshow considers a number of incidents over the course of the 2016 playoffs and envisions how a league less wary of influencing events and more concerned with taking dirty plays out of the game might have reacted.

In each case, we review how the NHL Department of Player Safety (DPS) has viewed these events, the various factors that make them undesirable and what kind of supplemental discipline would actually be effective in limiting their occurrence. 

Brian Boyle on Thomas Hickey

How the DPS saw it: There was no explanatory video from the DPS here, as the office opted not to suspend Boyle.

Current standard: There was no supplementary discipline of any kind. 

Revised standard: Hits to the head are always dangerous, but the replay here is not conclusive that this was in fact a blow to the head. Certainly Boyle made an effort to make primary contact with the body, and given that he's a 6'7" forward hitting a crouched 6'0" defenceman, it's actually remarkable how little head contact there was.

The league opted not to punish this hit, and even under a tougher standard, it's not clear what exactly is supposed to be objectionable here. 

Jason Chimera on Shayne Gostisbehere

How the DPS saw it: There was no explanatory video from the DPS here, as the office opted not to suspend Chimera. 

Current standard: Chimera was fined $5,000 for the incident, which the league notes is "the maximum allowable [amount] under the collective bargaining agreement."

Revised standard: This is a dirty play, but it's also the kind of play that doesn't generally have the same kind of health ramifications as a blow to the knee or head. It's not as serious as the incidents we'll see later on. It's just nasty.

The league typically fines this kind of incident, and from a player safety perspective, it's hard to argue with that approach. On the other hand, if the league decided one day it was sick of this kind of gratuitous stickwork, it could start giving players one-game suspensions for this sort of thing. 

Kris Letang on Marcus Johansson

How the DPS saw it: The DPS saw this as "a late hit" and a "high, forceful hit" in which Letang made "significant head contact" with a player who was "not eligible to be checked on this play." There was no injury on the play, and Letang had previously been fined and suspended. 

Current standard: Letang was suspended for one game. 

Revised standard: This hit comes close to being perfectly legal, but it's not quite there. The head wasn't the principle point of contact, but it was hit, and ideally the league would protect players' heads whenever possible. Letang did elevate, but not to the point where it could be considered charging or that he could really be considered to be targeting Johansson's head. Most importantly, the hit was a touch late. 

This is so close to being a legal check that it's hard to argue too much with a single-game suspension. 

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare on Dmitry Orlov

How the DPS saw it: The DPS determined that Bellemare was "in control of this play at all times" and that he saw "nothing but Orlov's numbers" as he tracked the player. Orlov was not injured on the play and Bellemare had no history of discipline. 

Current standard: Bellemare was suspended for one game. 

Revised standard: As the DPS stated, at no point did Bellemare see anything but Orlov's numbers, and he opted to finish the hit anyway. Orlov lost an edge, but that happens sometimes, and it wouldn't have been a problem if Bellemare wasn't engaged in illegally checking him. 

Injury and history both matter when determining the length of suspensions, and neither applies in this case. But there's just no excuse for this kind of dangerous, illegal check. A league that gave out multigame suspensions for this kind of thing, even with no injury, would be a cleaner league. 

Warning: The above video contains NSFW language.

Tom Wilson on Conor Sheary

How the DPS saw it: There was no explanatory video from the DPS here, as the office opted not to suspend Wilson. 

Current standard: Wilson was fined $2,403.67 for the incident, which the league notes is "the maximum allowable [amount] under the collective bargaining agreement."

Revised standard: Part of the problem is the player, and part of the problem is the incident. 

Wilson, incredibly, has never been suspended despite already earning notoriety for the way he plays right on the edge. In December 2013, the DPS went so far as to put out a video explaining why Wilson was not suspended for a boarding incident involving Philadelphia's Brayden Schenn. He has previously earned game misconducts for tough hits on players like Brian Campbell and Curtis Lazar. 

As for the incident itself, it was a gratuitous check from a player heading to the bench on a player without the puck, and it involved knee-on-knee contact. Knee injuries don't have the same stigma as concussions, but they can be devastating to an NHL player's career. This is a potentially much more serious matter than Chimera's stickwork, which was considered earlier.

Given Wilson's history of predatory hits, the danger associated with knee-on-knee contact and the needless nature of the hit, an NHL dedicated to tougher standards of discipline certainly could have justified a suspension here. 

Brayden Schenn on T.J. Oshie

How the DPS saw it: The DPS ruled that Schenn launched "up and into his hit, making significant contact with Oshie's head," and that while he had the option to make shoulder-to-shoulder contact, he instead chose to explode upward. The DPS also noted that he had been suspended previously for a similar action. 

Current standard: Schenn was suspended for three regular-season games.

Revised standard: Ideally, the league would be able to remove checks to the head entirely from the game, given the possibility that such hits can have long-term ramifications. This hit, however, is a bit of an aberration in that  the suspension came after the playoff series had ended.

As a result, the league didn't need to worry about tilting the competitive balance, so it came down harder on Schenn than it might have in other situations. 

Three games is right in the ballpark of what this kind of hit should warrant, considering there was no injury. 

Ryan Callahan on Kris Letang

How the DPS saw it: There was no explanatory video from the DPS here, as the office opted not to suspend Callahan. Sportsnet's Chris Johnston reported that the lack of an injury to Letang along with the fact that a penalty was called on Callahan factored into the decision. 

Current standard: There was no supplemental discipline of any kind on this play. 

Revised standard: TSN's Kerry Fraser wrote a strong piece on this hit, looking at it frame-by-frame, and much like the case of the Bellemare hit on Orlov, this is a situation in which Callahan saw the numbers for a long time before he delivered the check. Letang didn't lose an edge, but more ominously, Callahan extended his forearm, pushing Letang's head down right before contact. 

This was an ugly check and precisely the sort of thing the league should be trying to eliminate. A three- or four-game suspension would have been justified, given the risk to Letang and the needless violence of the hit. No suspension at all sends precisely the wrong message.

Kris Letang on Viktor Stalberg

How the DPS saw it: There was no explanatory video from the DPS here, as the office opted not to suspend Letang. Larry Brooks of the New York Post reported that the Rangers were informed Letang would not be suspended because he was "off-balance after having been checked a moment earlier in the sequence by a forechecking Dominic Moore."

Current standard: There was no supplemental discipline of any kind on this play. 

Revised standard: It's unbelievable that there was no suspension here under the current standard, let alone under a revised one.

As we've seen in previous slides, Letang has a history of involvement similar plays. His right arm is clearly visible in the video, and as he's getting hit, he has enough strength to go against the grain and move the puck. Then Stalberg comes into view, and that stick is swinging. There's no reason to believe that it was propelled by Moore's hit.

There's never an excuse for stick-swinging, and there's never an excuse for targeting the head of an opponent. Both happened in this case, and if the league moved to eliminate those things, the Penguins probably would have been without Letang's services for the rest of the series against New York.

Brooks Orpik on Olli Maatta

How the DPS saw it: According to the DPS, Orpik was “entirely in control” on the play; the hit was “forceful, unacceptably high and excessively late;” and “no player should reasonably expect to be hit in this time and in this manner.” The department also noted that Maatta suffered an injury on the play and Orpik had been suspended twice previously.

Current standard: Orpik was suspended for three games. 

Revised standard: Orpik himself agrees that the hit crossed the line. 

"It was a bad hit," Orpik said, per the Associated Press (h/t the Globe and Mail). "It was intended to be a hard hit, definitely not at his head, but I don’t think there is anything that you can argue that it was definitely late. I think that was pretty black and white."

The league came down pretty hard on Orpik in this instance, pulling him out of the lineup for half of Washington's second-round series against the Penguins. However, there was an injury, the hit was thrown by a player with a history and it was a late check to the head.

In a system with stiffer penalties, a repeat offender injuring a player with this kind of hit might expect to be out for an entire playoff round.