The 2013-14 National Hockey League season has not even begun, yet the NHL’s inconsistent discipline is already in mid-season form. Brendan Shanahan, the NHL’s Director of Player Safety, has a tendency of handing out erratic suspensions and this has never been more evident than during the 2013 preseason.
Two stick-swinging incidents from the past week are at the forefront of this discussion, specifically Vancouver’s Zach Kassian breaking Edmonton’s Sam Gagner’s jaw by wildly swinging his stick after a missed hit, and Toronto’s Phil Kessel’s violent, deliberate slashing at Buffalo’s John Scott. The difference between each incident however, is the intent to injure.
Even though both players were suspended, the severity of each shows the NHL’s inability to levee down appropriate discipline. Kassian was suspended the rest of the preseason, plus an additional five regular season games, while Kessel was only suspended for the remainder of the preseason.
Kassian’s play was dangerous, reckless and even moronic, but he did not mean to hurt Gagner; he just lost control of his stick. Kassian’s teammate Dale Weise was also suspended for the rest of the preseason for an elbow to Taylor Hall’s head, which occurred in the same game. Weise’s hit, a deliberate one to Hall’s head, is the type of play the NHL vehemently decries and wants out of the game, and yet they gave Weise a lesser penalty compared to Kassian’s freak accident.
The intent to injure in Kessel’s two-handed slashes at John Scott’s leg is quite apparent. One slash in self-defense is understandable, because Scott — a 6’8”, 270-pound behemoth — was unnecessarily trying to come after the much smaller Kessel. But the second attempt was obviously to harm Scott: at this point, Scott was already subdued by Kessel’s teammates before he wound up for the second strike. An attempt to injure another player should result in a heftier suspension than an accident.
In the video where Shanahan explains Kassian’s suspension, and describes the hit: “Kassian comes to a spinning stop, recklessly swinging his stick and striking Gagner in the face and breaking his jaw.” Shanahan cites Gagner’s injury, which was revealed after the game, and the injury had no consequence on the play itself, which should make it irrelevant, contrary to what Shanahan seems to be suggesting in the video. Kassian’s suspension was based on the injury and not the action.
In the Kessel suspension video however, Shanahan notes that Kessel engaged in similar stick swinging incidents previously in the same game, yet Shanahan says Kessel has “no history” of supplemental discipline. While the no supplemental discipline fact is true, Shanahan has showed that Kessel has a very recent history of attempts to injure, although no suspensions. Shanahan also states that Scott was not hurt, thus the lighter penalty.
These two ideas seem backwards to me. An attempt to injure with no injury merits a lesser suspension, while an accident with an injury deserves more? The attempts to harm other players are the dirty plays the NHL is trying to get rid of, yet Kessel walks away from trying to harm Scott and others without missing a single regular season game. Meanwhile, Kassian misses meaningful games for an errant stick. It should be the other way around. The NHL’s inconsistent discipline simply comes down to incompetence and hypocritical ideals.
