Kris Draper can’t believe what he’s seeing so far in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Draper, who is the special assistant to Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland, is disgusted with the amount of cheap shots and excessive violence taking place in the NHL right now.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Draper told Brady & Lang on Sportsnet 590 The Fan Wednesday morning. “It’s getting dangerous right now. (Hossa) is a friend of mine and I saw that hit and it’s pretty scary.”

Head shots and suspensions have been the story so far of the NHL playoffs and it continued on Tuesday night after Chicago Blackhawks forward Marian Hossa left the game on a stretcher following a vicious hit from Raffi Torres of the Phoenix Coyotes.

We all want to see tough playoff hockey- but do we want to see good players getting hurt/ suspended every night? It’s a fine line I guess..

— Joffrey Lupul (@JLupul) April 17, 2012

The former Red Wings forward has been through the grind before and said he understands the amount of grit and toughness needed for a Stanley Cup run. But Draper believes the players have gone too far and the dirty play has gotten out of hand.

“I know what’s at stake and what’s on the line and I know you want to compete and do everything you can to win the Stanley Cup,” Draper explained. “But this stuff is crazy with crosschecks to the face, elbows to the heads, leaving your feet and targeting heads. I don’t know what to make of it.”

Like many former players have expressed in the past, Draper echoed the sentiment that the lack of respect between players remains a prominent issue in the NHL and said Shea Weber’s hit on Henrik Zetterberg was another clear example.

“I think that’s the players right now — the respect isn’t as great as it should be,” he said. “You can seriously hurt people and that’s the unfortunate thing of what’s going on right now … You have to respect the opponent and it seems now more than ever that guys are going right for the head. Somebody might get hurt here and we’ve got to stop this.

“Shea Weber tried to hurt Henrik Zetterberg. It was clear cut. He tried to punch him right in the head. He didn’t get enough of him so he grabbed his head and slammed him in the boards. He just got a fine.”

Draper, who played in 1,157 career NHL games, made it clear that the league needs step in before it goes too far and someone suffers a serious injury.

“Something’s got to happen, there has to be something greater or something bigger to settle everything down,” he said. “I know (Brendan Shanahan) is trying and doing the best that he can but with the way that it’s going … this has to stop. Unfortunately we’ve had these kind of incidents and that’s always the lead story in the U.S.”

Draper’s Red Wings are down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series to the Nashville Predators after losing 3-1 in Game 4 on Tuesday night.