Chris Kunitz's crosscheck on Simeon Varlamov
by FrankD on May 5, 2009 3:21 PM EDT
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PrintOk, Take Two. This is Chris Kunitz's crosscheck on Simeon Varlamov that the NHL reviewed and ultimately suggested was not worthy of a suspension. If you felt otherwise or think the NHL ruled correctly share in the comments.
Apparently the NHL is looking at this Chris Kunitz crosscheck on Simeon Varlamov to see whether it should warrant a suspension or not. Ovechkin is saying it's dirty, Coach Boudreau is insisting Kunitz aimed "right for the throat." It's not pretty, but it's hard to say if it's intentional. What say you?
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Ah, I haven’t read anything on it yet that officially said so.
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Again, it said it was reviewed but didn’t say whether he was suspended or not. The least they could’ve done was elude to a decision
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It’s in the first paragraph.
bq.Alex Ovechkin was hoping for more, but Pittsburgh Penguins wing Chris Kunitz will not be suspended by the NHL for his late-game hit to the neck area of Capitals goalie Simeon Varlamov seconds before Sidney Crosby scored his third goal of Game 2 with 30.4 seconds left in the third period.
All right. I’m an idiot.
Left the original text there so I could job myself.
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No you’re right. I just need my eyes checked.
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Nah, just go with the “they must have updated the story” defense.
Lighthouse Hockey: Side effects may include Weight gain and frequent game loss.
haha well in all honesty I was preoccupied by a bunch of other things while starting to type it up but that’s my own fault
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The NHL has decided not to suspend over it.
I don’t think it was a very nice thing for Kunitz to do, that’s for sure.
Yeah I saw that same article but didn’t see a definitive answer. It just said the tape had been reviewed. I thought maybe they were still considering it. Oh well.
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Now that we’ve cleared up my own discrepancies, let me just say I really don’t think it was intentional. It looked like Kunitz was fighting for position. A goaltender in the butterfly position just happens to be at the inconvenient height of a guy fighting for the puck in front of the net. Maybe it could’ve been an interference call, but definitely not a hit worthy of suspension.
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not intential?
…let me just say I really don’t think it was intentional
Really? REALLY? Do you also think that that Todd Bertuzzi’s hit on Steve Moore was unintentional? Was Marty McSorely’s high stick of Donald Brashear just a misunderstanding?
Kunitz’s cross-check neck was so blatant and intentional a blind man could see it. He violently thrust his stick into Varlamov’s neck when nobody was even close to hitting him or jockeying for position with him. I’m not necessarily saying it was suspension worthy, no harm to Varlamov and I don’t even think it really factored in to Crosby’s goal, I’m just saying it was clearly dirty and intentional and to say otherwise is just idiotic and ignoring the video evidence right in front of you
by FrankStallone on May 5, 2009 4:53 PM EDT up reply actions
Loved the work you did on the Rocky films. I’m flattered to have you as a reader.
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you heard it on coaches room the call might have been ignored because of the Dive by OV. not that i’m condoning the cross check by Kunitz. But if you play the Refs by being a drama queen calls their not going to call plays like that to try to even things out. Its what happens.
Lifes rough, wear a helment
if you honestly think the attempt to decapitate a goalie (whether on purpose on “in the heat of the moment”) somehow was correlated by an NHL ref or Colin Campbell with OV’s dive, you’re probably blinded by you allegiance (or your dislike for OV). This is the NHL at it’s best. No accountability, no consistency, and in the end, no respect. You (and by that I mean the sport, its players, and its fans) get what you deserve.
by Pi on May 5, 2009 9:09 PM EDT up reply actions
Its just a theory. And its not like the league has been very consistence when it comes to calls for suspension on questionable plays.
Lifes rough, wear a helment
well, at least you could admit it’s a silly theory. there was no suspension because the league has no consistent criteria for addressing these issues.
by Pi on May 6, 2009 8:42 AM EDT up reply actions
I don’t understand how you could say it was unintentional. There was no Cap Dman even remotely close to battling with Kunitz right there. The puck was out in front of Kunitz and then he xchecks his stick directly to the side and right into the goalie’s head. That’s not a coincidence. Kunitz would have had to reach forward to be trying to play the puck, but he didn’t. NHL players are too smart and too skilled with their sticks to not know what they are doing in a situation like that. It was completely intentional (he learned from the best, Corey Perry) and he got away with it. A suspension is probably a bit stiff considering how far you have to go over the line (and you have to be a non-skill player) to get a suspension in the NHL these days, but it definitely deserved at least a 2 min PIM and maybe a 4 or 5.
Kunitz admitted...
…that it looked pretty bad and that he shouldn’t have done it. It was intentional, but in the heat of the action, it’s not something that he was thinking he wanted to do. That he owned up to doing it may have been what saved him from a suspension and only cost him a fine…
Let's go Caps!
by MikeL-Pivonka on May 6, 2009 4:28 PM EDT up reply actions
yeah that was pretty bad
it looked intentional to me. i think he sure could’ve held himself back. no reason to try to whack the guys head off. i’m glad varlamov didn’t seem to feel it much. i don’t like that play though. the pens are better than that.
As a Wings fan...
I saw the hit Mike Brown put on Jiri Hudler go unsuspended, and unfined. Last night I saw Kunitz’ crosscheck on Varlamov and thought that it would unlikely warrant a suspension, given Brown’s hit and no suspension. I think the league needs to get its shtuff together when it comes to suspensions. Brashaer gets 5 games for the hit on the Ranger but Brown hits Hudler just as bad and doesn’t get anything. The League needs to get things consistent when it comes to shots to the head; call it all or don’t call any of it.
www.wingingitinmotown.com
eh
is it dirty? i dont know, in the middle of a play when a goalie tries to move a power forward outta they way things generally get dicey anyway. with that being said had it been against a position player i think k would be done, there was no injury. thats probably why nothing came of it other then a fine, varlamovs helmet kept him safe. but after viewing it a couple times it looked to me that kunitz was going after the puck trying to make a play, but thats not the play i would want any player on any team to try and make. again the helmet saved v….bad job kunitz, ive always liked him since he broke into the league but c’mon man your better then that
re-read what you wrote. you wrote Kunitz was going after the puck, then you write that’s it’s a play you would not want any player to try to make, then call say it’s a bad job" and he’s better than that. c’mon now. i’m not saying suspend the guy, but be real. just say “it was stupid and, he was never playing the puck, and he meant to do it.” you’ll feel much better.
by Pi on May 6, 2009 8:46 AM EDT up reply actions
And while we are at it lets call what Ovary did a dive. I babies dive. You end up scoring on it thanks to a borderline interference and that makes the difference in a tight series. Then, because our team refuses to give up, your goalie gets hit in the head while a guy is scrumming in front of the net and you Caps fans go off the deep end.
Get over it, this is playoff hockey, it wasn’t premeditated it happened, your guy is fine. I hope your boy Ovary comes out tonight and thinks he is going to make Kunitz pay. I just hope!
Success without honor is like an unseasoned dish, it will fill you up but it won't taste good. - Joe V. Paterno
*scoring on a different powerplay.
Success without honor is like an unseasoned dish, it will fill you up but it won't taste good. - Joe V. Paterno
by carolinaeasy on May 6, 2009 10:03 AM EDT up reply actions
Then, because our team refuses to give up, your goalie gets hit in the head while a guy is scrumming in front of the net and you Caps fans go off the deep end.
Did you even watch the video? You just shoot your mouth off, and end up being totally unobjective and extreme.
lol
it wasnt a love tap on the back of the mask, it was a pretty good “get outta my way” corsscheck to the guys noggin. those hits you see dmen throwing on guys to break up a screen.
by oldtimehockey09 on May 6, 2009 4:34 PM EDT up reply actions
First off, the Caps fans aren’t going off the deep end. You spend enough time over there, you know. We are pissed about the play because it was dirty and could have injured our most important player, but we aren’t going off the deep end. Second, we are less mad that the goal was scored (because it didn’t matter) than that a dangerous play was ignored by the NHL. It wasn’t a hockey play, unless you define dirty attempts to injure as hockey plays. In that case, Brash’s hit was a hockey play. Orpik’s spear was a hockey play. AO’s dive is a hockey play (by the way, easy with piling on the diving, we all know you have a certain player notorious for diving; and babies cry, not dive). If it happens on ice, it’s a hockey play.
So we scored on a borderline call. You guys got borderline calls and failed to score. That’s your fault not ours. Borderline calls have been happening all series (especially game 2, brutally reffed both ways), our PP made you pay when it counted so you complain, your PP (right before ours) was impotent. Handle your own business before you start blaming borderline calls for our Ws.
maybe kunitz doesnt like russians or eruo’s. see kimmo temmonen…. either way he was attempting to get to the loose puck and just lost his ever livin mind. it happens. goalieas are always taken cheap shots, but again like carolina said its playoff hockey.
by oldtimehockey09 on May 6, 2009 3:24 PM EDT up reply actions
Well..
Kunitz is not fighting for position (there is no cap near him) and if you look at the where the puck is, there is no reason for him to make that action with his stick, except to give Varlamov a shot. He actually impedes his own path to the puck by doing this. Maybe he wasnt aiming at the neck, but he knew what he was doing. This was a dirty play by Kunitz.
Maybe that’s why he’s in a goal scoring drought, because he’s making the same action with his stick a second later trying to jam a loose puck into the net.
I watched it again in slo-mo, and I totally understand the argument that he was just trying to jam home a loose puck. However there are a couple things which dont make sense. 1) The puck appears to be in the process of being shot (by the penguin falling down) at, or around, the same time Kunitz delivers the blow. 2) If we assume he is trying to jam the puck in the net, why is his right arm going forward so violently? Any hockey player know that when you are trying to jam a loose puck, your shooting shoulder goes forward, which in turn causes the other to swing backwards. That’s peewee knowledge. Kunitz shoots left. He is trying to rough-up the goalie. Simple. Suspension worthy? I don’t know, but if you consider that Lucic and Carcillo got suspended for what they did, then the NHL should have given him 1 game (if only to be fair to them by holding everyone accountable). Colin Campbell is so flaky. The NHL needs to hold everyone to the same standards.
I don’t know if it was intentional or not…… but, I like it. Damn goalies are always getting in the way.
ive been in those infront of the net battles before nothing above college level mind you, but in the heat of the moment i have never gone after a goalie like that. only time i did was when i got a two handed adam graves esque chop by a net minder. k is a nice guy and a fierce competator, he may have just lost his marbles for a second. i agree with some of the other threads that at least he has owned up to it. shows a good side in the shadow of an ugly incident
by oldtimehockey09 on May 6, 2009 5:08 PM EDT up reply actions
It’s important to remember that the whole thing is happening in a split second, a lot of guys trying to accomplish a lot of things. It wasn’t the right thing to do, but hockey players do those types of things a lot, and when you’re on the ice trying to score or avoid being scored on, it gets tough, and it happens very fast.
That said, I can’t disagree with anyone who is arguing that the league admins need to find some consistency with fines/suspensions.
-David
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www.piratesmix.com.
What’s more eggregrious — Letang’s missed penalty or the 2 man advantage off the Ovechkin dive when it should have been even strength on the blatant unsportsmanlike offense or the crosscheck / slash goalie interference? Even if whistled, Letang would have been sent off for 2 minutes and the severity may have been noted by the league with a later fine. The game was mostly out of reach by then (30 seconds down 2). The 2 man advantage was far more pivotal on the outcome of the game.
If Boudreau wants the Pens to quit griping about the officiating, I hope the Caps will quit copping the obnoxious Flyer fan bitching about Crosby being a “diver” Ovechkin’s actions were pretty embarrassing, even for a guy who likes to dance around his stick to celebrate a milestone goal.
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