Anaheim Ducks center Antoine Vermette seemed to let his emotions get the best of him in Tuesday's game against the Minnesota Wild.
Per Navin Vaswani of theScore, Vermette slashed a lineman in the leg following a faceoff. He had lost the draw and apparently felt the official didn't drop the puck fairly. The 34-year-old received a game misconduct and could receive more punishment from the league.
The rules explicitly say he should be suspended 10 games. It's clearly a Category 2 abuse against the officials, which is making forcible contact without the intent to injure - carries an automatic 10 game suspension.I think the 10 games they'll give Vermette is just as excessive as the 20 they gave Wideman last year (two years ago?). Yes, he did something against the rules, and should be punished. He tried to get the ref's attention in an idiotic way, but missing 1/8th of the season because of something incredibly minor seems excessive.
Or 6. Either way.That's just as bad, if not worse than the McSorely slash. He was about an inch away from Bedard'ing him.
That should be 15-20 games minimum.
Physical violence towards an official is not "incredibly minor". In fact, it's pretty much the most serious offence in all of sport...and I think this is worse than Wideman because it was done in complete lucidity. Wideman at least had the defense that he was not fully aware of his act after a big hit.I think the 10 games they'll give Vermette is just as excessive as the 20 they gave Wideman last year (two years ago?). Yes, he did something against the rules, and should be punished. He tried to get the ref's attention in an idiotic way, but missing 1/8th of the season because of something incredibly minor seems excessive.
Here are the categories for "Abuse of Officials". This is automatic - there is no grey area and this isn't a judgement call. He deliberately applied physical force without intent to injure. There's absolutely no doubt this is a 10 game suspension.I can't easily concede that what he did "violent" though. It was physical, and it was directed at the official, but I did not see it as in any way intended to cause harm or hurt the official. I saw it as Vermette trying to get the ref's attention that he had an incredibly strong disagreement with the Ref on the drop on the face-off. His jawing after the fact also probably didn't help.
Totally think throwing him out of the game was appropriate.
Totally think that a suspension is important to ensure other players don't take the same actions.
I still just think 10 is excessive. I think what Nyquist did is a worse offense and deserves a longer suspension than this.
http://www.nhl.com/nhl/en/v3/ext/rules/2015-2016-Interactive-rulebook.pdf40.2 Automatic Suspension – Category I
Any player who deliberately strikes an official and causes injury or who deliberately applies physical force in any manner against an official with intent to injure, or who in any manner attempts to injure an official shall be automatically suspended for not less than twenty (20) games. (For the purpose of the rule, “intent to injure” shall mean any physical force which a player knew or should have known could reasonably be expected to cause injury.)
40.3 Automatic Suspension – Category II
Any player who deliberately applies physical force to an official in any manner (excluding actions as set out in Category I), which physical force is applied without intent to injure, or who spits on an official, shall be automatically suspended for not less than ten (10) games.
40.4 Automatic Suspension – Category III Any player who, by his actions, physically demeans an official or physically threatens an official by (but not limited to) throwing a stick or any other piece of equipment or object at or in the general direction of an official, shooting the puck at or in the general direction of an official, spitting at or in the general direction of an official, or who deliberately applies physical force to an official solely for the purpose of getting free of such an official during or immediately following an altercation shall be suspended for not less than three (3) games.
This counter-argument I can understand. I don't think its true 100% of the time, but it is in the overwhelming majority of cases, and I can see how protecting the refs in a similar way with a no tolerance policy is important.IMO it is similar to the difference between getting in a bar fight with another patron or assaulting a police officer. So it doesn't surprise me that Vermette will likely get longer than Nyquist.
The automatic suspensions for violations against officials are, and should be, scaled differently. I think that's the basic point of disagreement here. In a very important way, it's not the level of violence inflicted on an official that matters, its simply the existence of any level of violence in the first place.I think the scaling of the suspensions as written in the rulebook for automatic offenses are punished at a harsher scale than suspensions awarded to players by DoPS.
The Bruins are in 9th place and 4 points out of 1st in their division. They're also 11 points out of 7th place in the conference.If I were a betting man, I'd start to put money on whatever Metro team gets added as a wild card to the Atlantic bracket making the EC finals. This division is shit this year.
Hoo boy. Minnesota looks like the beast of the West.Final deal is Hanzal and Ryan White for a 2017 1st, 2018 2nd, conditional 2019 2nd.
A few things…I really don't get that for LA.
Bishop has a .911 save percentage. Budaj .917. There are other factors involved, but goaltending was basically the last thing the Kings needed.