Mario Lemieux: He's Right & Matt Cooke Being a Penguin is an Irrelevant Argument
Friday's game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Islanders left Penguins' owner Mario Lemieux incensed.
The game featured 12 goals, 14 fighting majors, 21 misconducts and 346 penalty minutes.
It also featured some blatant attempts to injure and brawls between several lines.
There are a lot of issues surrounding the game and how it was dealt with by the NHL, both of which left one of the best players in the history of the league needing to "Re-think whether (he) want(s) to be a part of it."
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Mario Lemieux's Statement
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"Hockey is a tough, physical game, and it always should be. But what happened Friday night on Long Island wasn't hockey. It was a travesty. It was painful to watch the game I love turn into a sideshow like that."
"The NHL had a chance to send a clear and strong message that those kinds of actions are unacceptable and embarrassing to the sport. It failed."
"We, as a league, must do a better job of protecting the integrity of the game and the safety of our players. We must make it clear that those kinds of actions will not be tolerated and will be met with meaningful disciplinary action."
"If the events relating to Friday night reflect the state of the league, I need to re-think whether I want to be a part of it."
Eric Godard's Suspension
2 of 10Eric Godard was given a 10 game suspension for leaving the bench to be part of a fight.
There was no issue with this from either side, as leaving the bench to fight is an automatic 10 game suspension.
Godard knew what he was doing and would almost certainly do it again.
Isles' enforcer Michael Haley skated to the Penguins' end to fight goalie Brent Johnson, and Godard took exception to it.
10 games was the right suspension in this case.
Issue No. 1: Matt Martin On Maxime Talbot
3 of 10As can be seen in the video, Matt Martin skates from beside/behind Max Talbot, drops his gloves and sucker punches Talbot, completely unprovoked.
It is clearly retribution for a hit Talbot put on Blake Comeau the last time the Penguins and Islanders played, on Feb. 2.
Talbot's hit on Comeau was completely clean, but Comeau was injured on the play, and the Islanders were upset about it.
Matt Martin's retaliation was completely unacceptable and has no place in the NHL.
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Matt Martin's Suspension
4 of 10The Matt Martin sucker punch was eerily similar to the play by Todd Bertuzzi, then of the Vancouver Canucks, on Colorado's Steve Moore.
Moore hasn't played a game since, and Bertuzzi was given a 20 game suspension for his actions.
Martin was given only four games.
Martin's play was arguably worse than Bertuzzi's, as he dropped his gloves, and hadn't challenged Talbot several times previously in the play.
The biggest difference is that Talbot didn't get badly injured on the play, but should that matter?
By giving Martin only four games, the NHL is all but encouraging him to do the same thing in the future.
Martin will forfeit about $41,000 from his suspension, but that isn't a lot when he's making $850,000 a year.
What if it ends a career next time? What if that career isn't Talbot's, but Alexander Ovechkin's or Steven Stamkos'?
It's supposed to be about intent, not result, when the league decides suspensions, and the intent was to end Talbot's season, if not his career.
Martin's suspension should have been in the 20 game range.
Issue No. 2: Trevor Gillies On Eric Tangradi
5 of 10Trevor Gillies skated hard across the ice and delivered a blindside elbow to the head of Eric Tangradi.
Tangradi was clearly injured on the play, and isn't a fighter at all, but Gillies proceeded to throw several punches at Tangradi after the hit.
Tangradi is now out indefinitely with "concussion-like symptoms."
The hit was completely unprovoked and wasn't carried-over emotion from a previous incident.
Finally, instead of going to the dressing room when the referees escorted him off the ice, he stood at the edge of the ice and yelled at Tangradi, who was being attended to by Pittsburgh's trainer.
Trevor Gillies' Suspension
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Gillies was given only nine games for this gutless display of goonery.
Gillies has scored just nine goals in his 12 year professional career, but has amassed 2,724 penalty minutes.
He's nothing but a hired hitman, and the only reason he isn't considered a "repeat offender" by the NHL is that he had only ever played 15 NHL games before this season.
Gillies has only played 32 of the Islanders 56 games this season, so giving him a nine game suspension means he'll only miss about five games that he would have played otherwise.
Gillies should have been given at least 20 games for his actions.
It's likely he'll get a worse punishment when he returns, from someone else in the league, for breaking the code of never hitting a guy when he's down.
New York Islanders' Fine
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The New York Islanders organization was fined $100,000 for "their failure to control their players."
The Islanders are a low revenue team, so this amount was seen as a large fine by many people.
When it's remembered that the Islanders pay their players at least $41 million each season, the $100,000 doesn't look like much.
Reaction To Mario Lemieux's Statement
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When one of the best players ever speaks out so harshly, everyone listens.
NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly gave the standard NHL answer: "We are entirely comfortable with how Friday night's events were handled. We have no other response to Mr. Lemieux's statement."
Some responded with similar comments to hockeymonster's, "You tell 'em Mario. Great guy, doesn't say a lot, but when he does, it leaves a big impact."
Others were more like dsimpson35's, "Does Mario ever stop crying? He was always whining when he played too. Employ Cooke and cry foul? Hypocrite!!!"
The Matt Cooke Argument Is Irrelevant
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The biggest reason people seem to have an issue with Mario Lemieux speaking out is that Matt Cooke, generally considered one of the dirtiest players in the league, plays for the Penguins.
This isn't an argument that Cooke isn't a dirty player. Matt Cooke plays as a pest, and his job is to get under the skin of opposing players.
He walks a fine line, and yes he does cross it sometimes. When he does, it's always from a hit that is, unfortunately, still part of the game.
What Cooke doesn't do is sucker punch, or hit guys when they're down.
One of Cooke's most controversial hits was a hit to the head on Marc Savard. Philadelphia Flyers captain Mike Richards put an almost identical hit on David Booth.
The Flyers didn't publicly call out their captain for being a dirty player when he did that, but everyone expects the Penguins to stand up and exile Cooke.
That's not how the league works. Teammates stick together and don't throw each other under the bus at every opportunity.
No one is upset that the rest of the Islanders aren't telling the media that Gillies and Martin should be off the team for their actions, but still that the Penguins should get rid of Cooke.
The other difference is that unlike Gillies and Martin, Cooke is actually an effective player. He's scored at least 10 goals in nine of the last 10 seasons.
Almost every team has an agitator on it, whether it be Steve Ott or Sean Avery, and almost every team would want Matt Cooke playing for them.
The fact that he plays for Pittsburgh is an irrelevant argument against Mario Lemieux's comments.
Who's Right: The NHL Or Mario Lemieux
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Mario Lemieux is right.
"The NHL had a chance to send a clear and strong message that those kinds of actions are unacceptable and embarrassing to the sport. It failed."
While the Godard suspension was an automatic 10 games, the NHL gave lesser suspensions to far, far more dangerous plays.
The NHL basically told everyone that they'd rather see someone get seriously injured than see someone break one of their precious rules.
The NHL also demonstrated this by giving Matt Martin two games less than they gave Sean Avery for making an "inappropriate comment" a few years ago.
Unfortunately, the NHL's failure to severely punish Martin and Gillies just makes it more likely that some of the Penguins players will want personal retribution when the teams meet again on April 8.
Hopefully Isles' coach Jack Capuano has enough common sense to keep them out of the lineup that game.
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