With much of the head shots controversy centering on the Pens, the hockey world is taking notice.
Not that you would wish it on any team, but having the Pittsburgh Penguins as the centre of a controversy about head shots just might be a huge stroke of luck for the NHL - and for hockey.
That's because when you have the game's best player, Sidney Crosby, on the sidelines with a head injury; an owner in Mario Lemieux who is one of the best players ever to skate in the NHL causing a flap because he thinks the league isn't handling supplemental discipline properly and one of the game's most despised cheap shot artists, Matt Cooke, all employed by the same club, the hockey world tends to sit up and take notice.
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In a way, it was like the perfect storm. The way things have unfolded, it's almost like it was scripted.
Sidney Crosby is back on the ice skating and will likely play again this season. That is great news. But his magical season was stopped in its tracks Jan. 5 when he was run into the boards by Tampa Bay Lightning defenceman Victor Hedman four days after he was accidentally, it appeared, hit in the head by an elbow of then-Washington Capital David Steckel. The end result was a concussion that brought Crosby's magical season to a halt. At the time of his injury he was running away with the scoring race and was easily the NHL's most valuable player.
Because it was Crosby, suddenly talk about eliminating head shots, as well as blindside hits, became all the rage. Both have been on the rise in recent years and there's been plenty of talk about what to do to control the mayhem on the ice, but Crosby's injury took discussions to new heights.
Then Lemieux writes a letter to the NHL complaining that the league is not doing enough in terms of disciplining those who purposely try to injure opponents. Although his intensions are good, Lemieux is widely criticized for being two-faced. On one hand he appears genuinely concerned about trying to clean up the game, but on the other he employs Cooke, a reckless and dangerous player who has no regard for the safety of his opponents and represents much of what is wrong with the sport.
If this scenario involved two players and the owner of the Nashville Predators or Columbus Blue Jackets, who'd notice? But this is Lemieux, Crosby and America's team, the Penguins.
Cooke's dastardly hit on New York Rangers defenceman Ryan McDonagh Sunday brought things to a boiling point. There was definitely pressure on the NHL to make a statement with the Cooke punishment and that is exactly what it did - suspending him for the remainder of the regular season, 10 games, as well as the first round of playoffs. It's not the biggest suspension handed down in league history, not by a long shot, but it was certainly more severe than the two games the NHL gave Boston's Brad Marchand for elbowing R. J. Umberger of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Penguins reaction to Cooke's suspension was encouraging. From general manager Ray Shero to coach Dan Bylsma to Cooke himself, the team has accepted the player's fate and applauded the league for taking a more influential stance. Maybe, just maybe, the fact Cooke was suspended 10 games and will lose more than $219,000 in salary will cause other players to think twice before administering a head shot.
Love him or hate him, Cooke represents a critical loss to the Penguins who are already playing without Crosby and star center Evgeni Malkin. With those three players in the lineup, Pittsburgh is a Stanley Cup contender. Without them they are long shots.
With the Penguins now having done their part to clean up the game, the league's big challenge will be how it handles the next random act of violence. The message it sent by suspending Cooke for 10 games will be lost if the next offender is let off with a light punishment.
More than anything else, the league must make a greater statement to first-time offenders such as Marchand. All players in the NHL need to know if they recklessly make contact with an opponent's head, there will be serious consequences.
Without giving them too much credit, we have the Pittsburgh Penguins to thank for the new direction the NHL is taking.
