A few Western voices give there opinion of the hit-from-behind heard that rocked the Eastern seaboard.
CALGARY - How many opinions have you been bombarded with since Tom Kostopoulos pounded Toronto defenceman Mike Van Ryn into the Air Canada Centre boards Saturday night?
Well, how about one from a guy who lives in neither Montreal or Toronto? A well-respected, Team Canada-level defenceman who has spent a career on the painful side of hits exactly like the one that earned Kostopoulus a three-game suspension.
"That hit? I don't think you can do anything with it," said Calgary Flames defenceman Robyn Regehr, who saw it as a wash.
On Regehr's scorecard, the fault for that hit lay in equal parts with both players.
Before the Flames hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs Tuesday, a few Calgary players grabbed the ol' clicker, and took an in-depth look at the latest in what has become a epidemic of hits from behind involving Toronto players.
"We talked about it at length," Regehr said on Tuesday. "We looked at the whole play. Kostopoulos was coming in with a full head of steam. He looked like he was going to hit Van Ryn shoulder to shoulder. But at the last second Van Ryn turned his back to the hit.
"It didn't work out well for either player."
Later, Regehr's coach, Mike Keenan, scoffed at the thought that Van Ryn should shoulder any of the blame on the hit.
"I don't think he'd risk injury like that," Keenan said. "I know Mike. He played for me. He wouldn't do that."
Regehr's viewpoint comes from the trenches, while Keenan's comes from a coach who has lost a player or two over the years to hits like the one Kostopoulos delivered. Both agree however, there are times when a player has to have the presence of mind not to take advantage of an opponent when that player is vulnerable to serious injury.
"I don't think coaches would be very happy to see guys put on the brakes. They're the ones who get everyone wound up," Regehr said. "There are certain times when you see a player [ease up]. It's respectful. But there is so much speed now. What bothers me is that things are dissected in slow motion. You have to look at it in normal speed. The game happens so fast. What can you do?"
Keenan claims he would be fine with a player passing up a big hit in the name of safety - "Those are the rules by which the game is played now. You have to play that way." - but we're not sure we're buying that 100 percent.
Down the hallway, Leafs coach Ron Wilson was set to install Ryan Hollweg back into his lineup after four games in the press box. Hollweg served a three-game suspension earlier this season after yet another hit from behind, his second suspension this season and the fourth time since January he has been penalized for hitting from behind
Wilson believes that coaches need to be part of the solution on this one.
"Have you seen Ryan Hollweg play lately?" said the man who sat Hollweg down for the past four games. "We've had lots of talks. The last three of four games [Hollweg has played], you don't see him going hell bent for leather on the forecheck.
"It's all about angles," Wilson teaches. "When you're going in perpendicular to the boards, something bad is going to happen."
Wilson says he has watched pee wee games where hits from behind are du jour.
"Is the idea to knock the guy off of the puck?" he asked. "Or is it to cripple him?"
He suggests that there has to be pressure applied on the players, in the form of suspensions, and to the teams with serial offenders as well. "Maybe you have to dress one less player while the suspension is being served."
Personally, we figure the players should sort this out for themselves. It's a respect issue, something players should handle collectively, rather than perpetually counting on the Colin Campbells and Gary Bettmans to come up with a solution.
The main thing is, Regehr said, "You can't look at the end result. You have to look at the whole play. You're going to see a little more of that now, that forwards are not held up in the neural zone. It's a bi-product of making a little change in the game."
