Around the NHL: 2015-2016

[That Aud Smell]

Not sure what you're saying, WC.

 

The player's bro petulance in a text to a teammate does nothing for me. That's just Mephistopheles finding some that suits the devil's agenda.

 

My view of that incident hasn't changed. Hasn't changed.

[WildCard]

Nothing in his actions, during and after, indicate any remorse for it whatsoever. Even if he was concussed, which I don't believe he was, guys are concussed all the time on the ice/field, and I've never once seen a guy attack someone afterwards. Usually, if they are so concussed as to confuse refs for players and not know where they are, they look like this

 

Edited February 18, 2016 by WildCard

[Stads]

Grigorenko just knocked Subban off the puck and then made a great pass to Iginla to put Colorado up 3-2 with under 3 minutes left in the third. He looks like he is finally figuring stuff out.

[WildCard]

Grigorenko just knocked Subban off the puck and then made a great pass to Iginla to put Colorado up 3-2 with under 3 minutes left in the third. He looks like he is finally figuring stuff out.

I still have no faith in him. Guy has 4-13-17 on the year. I get he's 21, but those are Larsson numbers, without Larsson style play.

 

Panarin scores his first hattie, and is promptly hacked at by Yandle on the empty netter to go flying hard into the boards. He's alright, but it looked wicked

[Sabel79]

Minnesota 3-0 up on Calgary, after pounding Vancouver the other night.  Evidently firing Yeo was just the rocket up the metaphorical rear end that team needed...

[Randall Flagg]

Minnesota 3-0 up on Calgary, after pounding Vancouver the other night. Evidently firing Yeo was just the rocket up the metaphorical rear end that team needed...

Minnesota seems to do this every year. Win 1 game out of 14 coming out of Christmas break, then charge to the playoffs, win a round, and get crushed by Chicago.

[Hoss]

I still have no faith in him. Guy has 4-13-17 on the year. I get he's 21, but those are Larsson numbers, without Larsson style play.

 

Panarin scores his first hattie, and is promptly hacked at by Yandle on the empty netter to go flying hard into the boards. He's alright, but it looked wicked

Larsson has 2-4-6 in 51 games.

[WildCard]

Larsson has 2-4-6 in 51 games.

Who does Grigorenko play with? PP time?

[Randall Flagg]

Who does Grigorenko play with? PP time?

He was up with Duchene for a bit at least in Buffalo. I don't miss him much but he definitely has good vision, which by itself gives him better offensive skills than Larsson

[JJFIVEOH]

I'll take a player's word for it before anybody else's.

 

https://twitter.com/Willie_Mitch33/status/695039713829380096

[That Aud Smell]

Nothing in his actions, during and after, indicate any remorse for it whatsoever. Even if he was concussed, which I don't believe he was, guys are concussed all the time on the ice/field, and I've never once seen a guy attack someone afterwards. Usually, if they are so concussed as to confuse refs for players and not know where they are, they look like this

 

Concussions exist within a continuum. Effects, responses, reactions will vary. Not everyone crawls to the bench like Ron Francis. Not everyone lays out like Umberger. Some guys finish the game, but then can't play (or work) for weeks afterward. Like the linesman who was hit by Wideman.

 

I don't know for a fact that Wideman was concussed. No more than anyone else can say he wasn't. But I do know that the NHL league office is populated by bird-brained, garage league, self-serving idiots. And I know there's nothing in Wideman's history that suggests any proclivity for what he did.

 

I'd even be sort of okay with a ruling that acknowledged the possibility of merit to Wiseman's defense, but erred on the side of protecting the refs and linesmen. But to go full bore on saying there was no impairment here? That's doubling down on stupid. And ignorance.

[darksabre]

Nothing in his actions, during and after, indicate any remorse for it whatsoever. Even if he was concussed, which I don't believe he was, guys are concussed all the time on the ice/field, and I've never once seen a guy attack someone afterwards. Usually, if they are so concussed as to confuse refs for players and not know where they are, they look like this

 

For the record, Umberger didn't suffer a concussion.

[That Aud Smell]

Waaaiiit. Is true? No way.

[LTS]

Nothing in his actions, during and after, indicate any remorse for it whatsoever. Even if he was concussed, which I don't believe he was, guys are concussed all the time on the ice/field, and I've never once seen a guy attack someone afterwards. Usually, if they are so concussed as to confuse refs for players and not know where they are, they look like this

 

 

 

As was posted by JJ, and has been upheld in many articles on concussion, the awareness of a person with concussion will vary greatly. He wasn't skating all over the ice to find something to hit.  Everything i saw immediately after the hit indicates he was operating on instinct. All players, when banged up, head to the bench.  All players know there can be contact near their bench doors and he saw a body near the door of his intended target (his bench door). Players are trained to engage in body contact with those targets. He did so and it happened to be a ref who wouldn't be expecting such contact. "Down goes Frasier."

 

I don't even mind the 20 game suspension. "Stuff happens".  But the fact that his team let him back on the ice after a player who just took a shot to the head and one who has "no history of these kinds of actions" that just jacked an official chose to ignore those signs and place him on the ice is disgusting. The fact that the league is holding themselves blameless in this is disgusting. I am hoping that Wideman chooses to pursue this issue further and even goes so far as to bring a lawsuit against the Flames and the NHL for not following their own protocol and for putting him back into play with the potential to suffer even greater head trauma.

Edited February 18, 2016 by LTS

[darksabre]

Waaaiiit. Is true? No way.

I stand corrected. I'm recalling the news as it came out back then. I went to google and it looks like I'm mis-remembering. He was reported that night as being perfectly fine, then was held out of Game 2 for concussion symptoms.

 

http://espn.go.com/nhl/playoffs2006/news/story?id=2418488

 

http://articles.philly.com/2006-04-26/sports/25394079_1_umberger-minor-penalty-wachovia-center

[That Aud Smell]

I stand corrected. I'm recalling the news as it came out back then. I went to google and it looks like I'm mis-remembering. He was reported that night as being perfectly fine, then was held out of Game 2 for concussion symptoms.

 

http://espn.go.com/nhl/playoffs2006/news/story?id=2418488

 

http://articles.philly.com/2006-04-26/sports/25394079_1_umberger-minor-penalty-wachovia-center

 

Thanks. I was gonna say. No frickin' way he wasn't concussed.

 

And I'd sort of forgotten that he was held out from the next game.

[WildCard]

I get people react to concussions a different way. Has anyone ever seen a guy get concussed and then 'accidentally' hit a ref like that?

[That Aud Smell]

I get people react to concussions a different way. Has anyone ever seen a guy get concussed and then 'accidentally' hit a ref like that?

 

Can't say I have.

 

Concussions are known to cause immediate disorientation and the loss of impulse control.

 

I think Wideman "meant" to hit the person in front of him on his way to the bench (perhaps in order to object to the nasty hit he'd taken). I don't think Wideman was capable of recognizing that that person was a linesman.

 

Looking at Wideman's track record: There's no rational explanation for what he did. So, I turn to the realm of the irrational.

 

Also, even if it's an uncertain issue, I'm not sure why someone would choose to side with the NHL.

[WildCard]

People don't need a track record to one day do something stupid. He and his team were made at the ref all game, it's not surprising that his violent hit caused him to react.

 

How is this choosing the side of the NHL? I just want the guy to own up for what he did

[K-9]

There can be no mitigating factors when refs are targeted and hit in the way Wideman hit that ref. None. It was intentional, regardless if Wideman was in his right mind or not. It was a deliberate act.

 

Being concussed and not in his right mind may explain his actions.

 

It does not excuse them.

[Weave]

People don't need a track record to one day do something stupid. He and his team were made at the ref all game, it's not surprising that his violent hit caused him to react.

 

How is this choosing the side of the NHL? I just want the guy to own up for what he did

 

I can't find it at work, but seek out the video of Pat LaFontaine's speech on his concussion history.  He had no awareness of what he was doing on the ice after a concussion.  None.  And his actions post-concussions were way out of character for him.  It is very reasonable to assume that Wideman wasn't himself after that hit.

[That Aud Smell]

People don't need a track record to one day do something stupid. He and his team were made at the ref all game, it's not surprising that his violent hit caused him to react.

 

How is this choosing the side of the NHL? I just want the guy to own up for what he did

 

It is true that a person can act out of character in a given moment. As for being mad at the refs (and linesmen, I am meant to believe), I suspect Wideman and his teammates have been furious with them in dozens of games in the past. And yet, there was no hitting a linesman from behind. Curious, that.

 

I'm not sure what you're saying by "it's not surprising ... react." You're saying that getting hit by an opponent was the last straw that prompted Wideman to hit a linesman? I just don't buy it.

 

As for siding with the NHL, maybe I say too much. Maybe you're not endorsing how Player Safety and Bettman have handled this. I find their handling of it to be appalling and disingenuous.

 

As for owning up for what he did, I've read multiple quotes from him expressing remorse for what happened. If he also says "but I wasn't in my right mind and didn't mean to do what I did", that's not refusing to own up, that's offering mitigating circumstances. In a more extreme example, if a driver has a medical emergency (e.g., seizure) and plows into someone, does that driver fail to own what he did if he expresses remorse and looks to defend himself with the medical emergency? I say no.

 

There can be no mitigating factors when refs are targeted and hit in the way Wideman hit that ref. None. It was intentional, regardless if Wideman was in his right mind or not. It was a deliberate act.

 

Being concussed and not in his right mind may explain his actions.

 

It does not excuse them.

 

I think this is fairly all over the lot. How can Wideman have targeted the linesman if he was incapable of forming the thoughts to accomplish that act? How can Wideman have acted intentionally if, as you indicate, he was not in his right mind?

 

There absolutely can be mitigating factors. And mitigating factors can excuse otherwise unlawful conduct. Happens all the time. Not here, though.

 

And, again, I'd almost be okay with the NHL saying that it recognizes the possibility that a concussion-related impairment contributed to this incident, but that the priority placed on the safety of referees and linesmen is so paramount that the letter of the rules must be strictly enforced. But they didn't do that. They're screwing around with the evidence and arguing that Wideman was not suffering from the effect of a concussion. The NHL is utterly full of sh1t, especially in this instance.

I can't find it at work, but seek out the video of Pat LaFontaine's speech on his concussion history.  He had no awareness of what he was doing on the ice after a concussion.  None.  And his actions post-concussions were way out of character for him.  It is very reasonable to assume that Wideman wasn't himself after that hit.

 

During one ill-advised fall in college, I played rugby. I was awful at it. I didn't have the courage for it. Nor the athletic skills. But the core of the team were fun British guys, so it was a good time. I played without suffering any major injuries.

 

Anyway. One of my fellow Yanks on the team once made a spectacularly violent (and legal) tackle just a few minutes after taking a knee to the temple and being knocked silly. He was congratulated minutes later during a lull in the game action, but responded with a stare of blank confusion. He was congratulated again during the post-game beer drinking and singing (one of the real reasons I joined), and he professed ignorance of what he'd done.

[Eleven]

Grigorenko just knocked Subban off the puck and then made a great pass to Iginla to put Colorado up 3-2 with under 3 minutes left in the third. He looks like he is finally figuring stuff out.

 

You mean Subban lost an edge and fell down and Grigo recovered the puck, right?

Can't say I have.

 

Concussions are known to cause immediate disorientation and the loss of impulse control.

 

I think Wideman "meant" to hit the person in front of him on his way to the bench (perhaps in order to object to the nasty hit he'd taken). I don't think Wideman was capable of recognizing that that person was a linesman.

 

Looking at Wideman's track record: There's no rational explanation for what he did. So, I turn to the realm of the irrational.

 

Also, even if it's an uncertain issue, I'm not sure why someone would choose to side with the NHL.

 

Problem is, it wouldn't have been ok even if it was a player.

[TrueBlueGED]

You mean Subban lost an edge and fell down and Grigo recovered the puck, right?

And then got benched for it, because Therrien is a doofus.

Problem is, it wouldn't have been ok even if it was a player.

Not in the abstract, but in the NHL? DoPS may have given him an under the table bonus for his fine work.

[K-9]

It is true that a person can act out of character in a given moment. As for being mad at the refs (and linesmen, I am meant to believe), I suspect Wideman and his teammates have been furious with them in dozens of games in the past. And yet, there was no hitting a linesman from behind. Curious, that.

 

I'm not sure what you're saying by "it's not surprising ... react." You're saying that getting hit by an opponent was the last straw that prompted Wideman to hit a linesman? I just don't buy it.

 

As for siding with the NHL, maybe I say too much. Maybe you're not endorsing how Player Safety and Bettman have handled this. I find their handling of it to be appalling and disingenuous.

 

As for owning up for what he did, I've read multiple quotes from him expressing remorse for what happened. If he also says "but I wasn't in my right mind and didn't mean to do what I did", that's not refusing to own up, that's offering mitigating circumstances. In a more extreme example, if a driver has a medical emergency (e.g., seizure) and plows into someone, does that driver fail to own what he did if he expresses remorse and looks to defend himself with the medical emergency? I say no.

 

 

 

I think this is fairly all over the lot. How can Wideman have targeted the linesman if he was incapable of forming the thoughts to accomplish that act? How can Wideman have acted intentionally if, as you indicate, he was not in his right mind?

 

There absolutely can be mitigating factors. And mitigating factors can excuse otherwise unlawful conduct. Happens all the time. Not here, though.

 

And, again, I'd almost be okay with the NHL saying that it recognizes the possibility that a concussion-related impairment contributed to this incident, but that the priority placed on the safety of referees and linesmen is so paramount that the letter of the rules must be strictly enforced. But they didn't do that. They're screwing around with the evidence and arguing that Wideman was not suffering from the effect of a concussion. The NHL is utterly full of sh1t, especially in this instance.

 

During one ill-advised fall in college, I played rugby. I was awful at it. I didn't have the courage for it. Nor the athletic skills. But the core of the team were fun British guys, so it was a good time. I played without suffering any major injuries.

 

Anyway. One of my fellow Yanks on the team once made a spectacularly violent (and legal) tackle just a few minutes after taking a knee to the temple and being knocked silly. He was congratulated minutes later during a lull in the game action, but responded with a stare of blank confusion. He was congratulated again during the post-game beer drinking and singing (one of the real reasons I joined), and he professed ignorance of what he'd done.

I am not unsympathetic to Wideman's condition. And I would accept his mental condition as a mitigating factor if the hit was on a player. Refs, however, are in an entirely different class of protective measures. For too many reasons to list and argue here.