Slowly but surely, the NHL is making progress on head shots.
RALEIGH, N.C. — By God, we’ve got progress on head shots.
When Mike Richards, who started this whole thing a season ago when he caught David Booth with a classic head shot, is tapping on the brakes to avoid knocking another player out, it is a positive sign.
When the players — especially this player — is getting it, we have progress.
"That’s positive," said New Jersey general manager Lou Lamoriello. "Extremely positive."
The non-hit we’ve been waiting to see went by virtually unnoticed, back on Dec. 28, in the Vancouver Canucks’ 6-2 demolition of the Philadelphia Flyers.
"Henrik was coming across (the middle), and he had lost the puck a little bit," began Canucks GM Mike Gillis, who sat in a hotel ballroom with governors from the other 30 teams Saturday morning and saw video of this play along with several others that fell on both sides of the head shot conversation.
"And rather than hitting (Sedin) in a vulnerable position, Richards approached him much more cautiously and went for the puck. He tried to interrupt him that way.
"So there is some evidence of players beginning to react in respect to each other."
We have said for years now that, while the NHL has become leader among professional sports leagues in search of a solution to limiting concussions, it is the players who can affect the most change. They — the NHLPA — have to step up and take responsibility if this problem is to be solved
One argument has always been that the game happens so fast. Jarome Iginla told us back in 2009 that is simply untrue.
"We know what we’re doing on hits from behind, and we know what we’re doing [when opponents are in] more vulnerable positions," Iginla said. "It’s not that fast. Guys know what they’re doing on 90-plus percent of the hits."
Another school of thought is that there are certain players who, if they turn away from a hit, might not see the ice again. But it was at the general managers meetings in Boca Raton, Florida last March — just days after Matt Cooke concussed Marc Savard with a vicious blindside hit — where the GMs decided it was all right for a player to pass up a big hit, if it was a dangerous one.
"Now if you’re the hitter you have to make a choice," Leafs GM Brian Burke said that day. "You can still hit that guy, but you can’t target his head. And sometimes, you’re just going to have to avoid the hit altogether."
Let the record show: On Dec. 28, 2010, inside Rogers Arena in Vancouver, in a game where his team could certainly have used the momentum created by a big hit on the Canucks captain, Richards — a previous offender — used his brain, instead of potentially injuring Henrik Sedin’s.
"Guys get it," said St. Louis president John Davidson, who likens the transformation to the changing of rules on obstruction. "It took two years, but we’re finally getting (not to) hook and to hold."
We’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer.
The governors were told on Saturday that, of concussions sustained in the NHL this season, a growing percentage were accidental. Like when two St. Louis players collided, or when Andy McDonald tripped and hit his head on Shawn Horcoff’s knee.
A shrinking percentage are of the type that has sidelined the Blues’ David Perron since Nov. 4, when Joe Thornton clocked him with a back-side shot that earned Thornton a two-game suspension.
The numbers are trending in the right direction, and so is the anecdotal evidence. The bad hits are resulting in suspensions, and there are less of them.
But there is still plenty of contact in the game, a vitally important aspect to the ongoing removal of head shots.
"It’s a full contact sport. There’s no out of bounds in our game," Burke said. "We’re going to have concussions. What we have to do is make the game as safe as we can make it within that context that it is a full contact sport."
It may be taking longer than you’d like, but you can’t deny it. Slowly, they’re getting there on head shots.
