There is no point in having a fight in the NHL after the tackles. It’s even stupider that the team’s star players are going to fight, writes Tommi Seppälä, NH Sports reporter for Urheilun. Watch a video of the situation that led to Nathan McKinnon’s fight by clicking on the image.
30.3. 20:59 • Updated March 30th. 21:00
There are still old-school views on hockey that players should have the opportunity to share justice with. In the view, wrongdoers should be able to be punished with their fists if necessary. This is what the NHL did for decades and continues to operate despite the softened values.
It works, even though the game has never been made cleaner by violence. Although in the decades the dirty tricks had to be answered with the fistest, contemporary evidence is full of uglier tricks and tackles, which in itself refutes the eye-to-eye theory.
On top of all that, the players caused each other a huge amount of unnecessary brain injuries, especially in recent years.
In terms of fights, however, the NHL has made tremendous progress in recent years. There have never been as many fights in the NHL as there are now, and there has been a complete get rid of the fights that have taken place, especially in the early stages of matches. What remains is mainly the fuss caused by the scent of the game as a result of the emotional turmoil.
This is the only form of hockey fighting that can even be understood on some level – it is part of the sport of the sport and so be it.
There is still one problem area for the sport, or more specifically the NHL, with fights.
It is absurd to have to fight in the NHL even after pure tackling. No matter how deeply you want to understand hockey culture, which has always included a strong one-for-all and all-for-one thinking, with this the league has climbed stern above the tree and badly.
Players still want to hold on to old-fashioned thinking, where they look one after the other. If one herd is hurt, someone else punishes the rigger. For its part, this is also easy to understand. Those teams that allow an opponent to throw their skills around the pitch without a backlash will eventually be left under the street roll in the match itself.
There are also these teams.
Still, fighting feels pointless. The problem is also that players, especially at the current pace, may not have any chance of making a proper assessment of the quality of the tackles in the game. Sure, there’s room for some clearly ugly tackles, but for every ugly tackle, there are numerous miscalculations.
As a result of these miscalculations, the NHL too often has to fight even after clean tackles.
One such incident was also seen this week in Minnesota Matt Dumba rigging in Colorado Mikko from Ranta cleanly and fiercely after a Turku resident drove on the offensive line directly into the mine of a Canadian defender. Colorado, of course, had to show a potential playoff opponent that the most versatile striker in the first chain is not being abused in quality.
And as often, the punishment is enforced immediately.
However, it was implemented by a completely wrong man. Instead of Colorado letting him be used to being on the ice at the same time and fighting Create MacDermidin or Valery Nitshuskin to take care of the dirty work, the right to take the first striker into their own hands Nathan MacKinnon.
And anyway, two days later, Colorado announced MacKinnon was on the sidelines for an upper body injury. Head coach Jared Bednarin according to the injury was probably due to a fight. And worst of all, the club couldn’t give MacKinnon any return on any schedule. The pilot added that the whole club was worried.
With all due respect: can there be a more stupid and pointless way to treat oneself to injured books?
Fortunately, the playoffs in Colorado still have five weeks to go. It is still certain that GM will not Joe Sakic neither is head coach Bednar very pleased with the betrayal of MacKinnon’s discretion. According to the hockey code, MacKinnon did the right thing, but at the same time he put the whole club in a very awkward situation.
And only because this has always been done and it is necessary to do so.
However, this should not have been done specifically, because Matt Dumba did nothing wrong with the situation. Rantanen, who lost the puck at the last minute, drove himself to an extremely awkward place on the surface of the blue line. The TPS breeder offered Dumba, who had a rigging, a place he did not leave unused.
And even less fuss should have left star player MacKinnon. What if MacKinnon had done the same thing in late April and put himself on the books of the injured for weeks under the playoffs? Or what if MacKinnon had a severe concussion from the fight?
For a moment of unnecessary impulse, the entire team aiming for the championship would pay.
Rigging is an irreversible part of the once-great physical element of hockey. Tackling is also an important part of the tactical side of the game. Rigging should never be uprooted. The biggest challenge in hockey with this wound is to teach new generations of skilled hunts to take up tackles.
It is special that at the same time as it is desired to preserve the physical element in a sport whose players are known for their hard nature and high pain tolerance, even pure tackles have to fight. Especially the handsome clean open ice bombs, which effectively empty the bellows of the receiving party, almost without exception lead to a completely futile fight.
This is against common sense in every way.
The discipline in the NHL has made itself a laughing stock, which is helping to confuse the pack. On the other hand, players are unlikely to be the first to demand longer bans on the NHL, as damage can sometimes happen to themselves. Long unpaid bans are hardly at the top of the players ’association agenda.
Better discretion for players would still be a matter of fighting.
And when it comes to Nathan MacKinnon, we’ll hardly see him again in a fist job right away. The message from the club and coaching leadership is probably very clear: very different men have been hired for dirty jobs in Colorado.