After a season marred by concussions to top stars and head hits occurring on a basis that could almost be considered “rampant,†the National Hockey League has apparently still not got the point.
How else can you explain the fact that Vancouver’s Raffi Torres escaped punishment from the league for a blindside hit to the head on Chicago’s Brent Seabrook?
Torres is a player who just came back from a four-game ban too; he surely didn’t learn his lesson.
Many will take the league’s side that Seabrook wasn’t hurt on the play and that it may not have technically been a blindside hit, but there is no denying that the Canucks forward clearly targeted the defender’s head.
Couldn’t Torres have simply laid him out with a shoulder-to-shoulder check? Would that not have the desired effect of flatten Seabrook and possibly creating a turnover?
The fact that even more people are watching these games now and that Torres is a repeat offender should have sealed his fate. If the NHL continues the party line of going soft on these guys, hits like this one will keep on happening and players will continue to get hurt.
Shouldn’t the league smarten up about this? Or has Colin Campbell taken a few too many head shots himself?