Taking dead aim at headshots

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/03/2010 (5813 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BOCA RATON, Fla. — The issue of headshots in hockey will be put under the microscope when the NHL’s 30 general managers gather together this week.

It will be one of the many topics discussed during the annual GM meetings from today to Wednesday and seems to be the one most likely to result in a potential rule change.

It’s something the GMs have grappled with a few times already. Former NHL Players’ Association executives Paul Kelly and Glenn Healy raised the heading issue during a presentation at these meetings a year ago, saying it was the most important concern for players.

However, it didn’t gain much traction then or during a subsequent meeting at the Stanley Cup final in June. The nature of the conversation changed when the group convened in November, prompted in part by a couple vicious hits early in the season — notably the one Mike Richards put on David Booth.

Marc Savard’s injury Sunday should also be part of the conversation. The Bruins centre went down after Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke raised his shoulder, hitting Savard in the head from behind and sending him out on a stretcher.

Savard had just taken a shot when Cooke raised his shoulder and struck Savard in the head. Cooke was coming from behind on the play and Savard did not see him.

Savard was on the ice for several minutes, being attended to by a Penguins team doctor, before being carried off. He was moving his legs while on the ice and his arms while on the stretcher.

“It’s pretty obvious that was definitely a dirty hit,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “That’s probably the classic blind-side hit to the head… I’m usually reserved in making comments, but definitely the league will take care of it.”

Savard, one of Boston’s top players with 10 goals and 23 assists, remained behind at the team hotel Sunday night, along with a member of the team’s medical staff. The Bruins were unaware after the game of any medical problem other than the concussion, although they said Savard was unconscious briefly.

No penalty was called, which especially angered the Bruins.

“A guy like that has to be suspended,” Julien said. “That’s the way I see it because it’s an elbow to the head from the blind side, and that’s exactly the example they show, what we’ve got to get out of this game. We got a guy who’s got a concussion, our best player, and he’s going to be out for a while. He was out on the ice for a bit and that’s unacceptable.”

TV replays appeared to show Cooke had enough time to pull up and not slam into Savard, and that he raised his arm before the hit.

“I felt like it was shoulder to shoulder,” said Cooke, who is uncertain whether he will be suspended by the NHL. “I know he’s shooting the puck but I just finished my check. I got hit the same way my shift before at centre ice by their defenceman, except I (ducked) at the last second.”

In November, the managers began acknowledging that change might be in the air.

“(The conversation) was quite a bit different, some of the guys who have taken a strong position that it may take hitting out of the game have adjusted their views a little bit,” Carolina Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford said then. “If we continue down what was talked about today then we will see a change. … I think if we got the direction that it appeared we were going, you will see a change for next year.”

Rutherford is one of eight GMs who will be tasked with discussing various aspects of headshots before it is tackled by the larger group. A decision could then be made to recommend a rule change, which would need to be approved by the competition committee and league’s board of governors.

— The Canadian Press