I like your thinking. Rinne puts up a 41 save performance in the Joe. We lost that game on Crawford. Absolutely horrendous.
- anawrocki

But he was otherwise great. Looked like he got over late, and he also looked exhausted. As you guys know, I'm not a huge C2 fan.

Before you even ask those questions, there needs to be an anouncement that Shanahan either wants a phone conference or a face to face meeting in New York first.

I haven't heard anything on that. Has anyone else heard that yet?
- EKolb13

The furor over this makes a suspension INEVITABLE.

Not bone or nerve. Soft tissue.
- John Jaeckel

Uh, is that the same as muscle? IOW, a bruise?

And so you did hear that there was a concussion involved?

Before you even ask those questions, there needs to be an anouncement that Shanahan either wants a phone conference or a face to face meeting in New York first.

I haven't heard anything on that. Has anyone else heard that yet?
- EKolb13

I have not. Shanahan's boss is involved.

First, I agree completely that Torres deserves a nice long suspension for this. 10+ games.

However, your arguments of how it differs from Keith's hit are all just superfluous information unrelated to what should determine suspension length:

Keith was retaliating, not cheap-shotting unprovoked as Torres was. So what? Players need to be in control of their actions, regardless of whether or not they are upset. And that's not something that is supposed to effect suspension length.
Keith was penalized on the play, Torres wasn't. So what? The competency of in-game officiating is in question fairly universally, including in this blog. In-game officials competency isn't something that is supposed to effect suspension length.
Blackhawks had someone suspended recently, Vancouver hadn't. Again, so what? Torres is in no way at fault for Shaw's hit, and the fact Shaw got himself suspended has nothing to do with Torres hit. The fact Torres threw a dirty hit on someone playing for a team still shorthanded from throwing their own dirty hits isn't something that should effect suspension length.

Torres has a history of suspensions, and that should get his ban longer than Keith's. But many Blackhawks fans are coming off as very hypocritical considering their own player was head-hunting and taking out star players less than a month ago.

I don't think so, not with this.

I can see any team in the league, including the Hawks, milking it a bit, much like the Mike Smith/Andrew Shaw thing.

The hit on Hossa was different and far more brutal. Hossa was hurt, in a real bad way. I really doubt he's milking anything.
- EKolb13

His injury makes the way Smith flopped after the "hit" by Shaw even more ridiculous and infuriating. Here's a guy that takes a hit and is seriously injured to where he has to be taken off on a stretcher and then you have a guy who is 6'4" who went down like he was shot with an elephant gun and then stayed on the ice until Shaw was given the game misconduct and then miraculously popped up and finished the game. Then you had to listen to the, "he didn't practice today", "he is unavailable to the media due to extreme circumstances", and "he is a game time decision". It's an f'ing joke. As far as I'm concerned he made fools out of the on ice and off ice officials with his act. Next year, the first time the Hawks play them in the regular season, they should have someone REALLY run his ass!

by my count hossa was on his second stride after passing the puck back. that is not way late in my opionion.

saying torres ran him is like saying if I jump on the train tracks in front of a train, the train ran me over. Hossa changed his direction 180 degrees while torres was skating back to the play, which Hossa was leading. Torres saw the opportunity to make a check (what he gets paid to do) and took it.

shoulder to the face? its a fast game. torres does need to be accountable for his body, but hossa needs to protect himself.

and finally, wasn't contesting the jump, just pointing out some potentially mitigating factors.

all in all, i think it is a borderline charge, that ended up making contact with the head. for that reason and Torres' history, i say 1-2 games. other than that, it is a hockey hit.
- jarmstrong

I am officially less intelligent for reading that post. How could I get that 35 seconds back?

I like your thinking. Rinne puts up a 41 save performance in the Joe. We lost that game on Crawford. Absolutely horrendous.
- anawrocki

Nobody felt worse than Crow...but FFS....he let the whole team and its fans down with a slip shod piece of goaltending.

Uh, is that the same as muscle? IOW, a bruise?

And so you did hear that there was a concussion involved?
- busmaster

Soft tissue would be membranes and maybe muscle. This is beyond my level of knowledge.

I did hear there was a concussion.

The funny thing about all this...I hated Scott Stevens for every second of his career...called him dirty and that he didn't belong in the NHL with those hits.

I got yelled at, called various names and that I "clearly don't understand hockey if you think those hits are dirty"

And yet here we are, years later and if Stevens was in this league he'd have been suspended so many times he'd have been kicked out and/or would just be another Matt Cooke and a waste of a good defenseman.
- Juice

while i think this true...one of the problems now is that every team has 5 or six guys that night-in and night out-are big and strong and fast enough to railroad people like stevens did

Why would he have been stablized in a stretcher if not?
- John Jaeckel

Precautionary and it that should be done more often. NFL almost always does it.

Call me an idiot and whatever else you might want to say, but I really do not see how this hit was so malicious. I am not comparing this to any other hit, nor am I biased to any team in this series. I seriously could not care any less who moves on. What I do see- torres is definitely going full speed and left his feet. What I don't see- a late hit and the head being the principle point of contact. When I say principle I mean that the head took the brunt of the hit and nothing else was touched. This is simply not true. It looked like the chest took most of the hit which already deflates the hits significance. There is also the timing of the play. As hockey fans, we always see late hits near the boards (over a second or two). In this case, torres made contact less than a second after hossa lost the puck. Just because it was a bigger hit and an injury was a result, people are more likely to say it was late. I really do not understand that. It's hockey. Everything is bang bang. There is no way torres, who was obviously going for a big hit anyway, could do much at that point to get away.

Do I think he should be suspended for a long time? Yes, of course. But for the reasons everyone says? No. Just my two cents.

First, I agree completely that Torres deserves a nice long suspension for this. 10+ games.

However, your arguments of how it differs from Keith's hit are all just superfluous information unrelated to what should determine suspension length:

Keith was retaliating, not cheap-shotting unprovoked as Torres was. So what? Players need to be in control of their actions, regardless of whether or not they are upset. And that's not something that is supposed to effect suspension length.
Keith was penalized on the play, Torres wasn't. So what? The competency of in-game officiating is in question fairly universally, including in this blog. In-game officials competency isn't something that is supposed to effect suspension length.
Blackhawks had someone suspended recently, Vancouver hadn't. Again, so what? Torres is in no way at fault for Shaw's hit, and the fact Shaw got himself suspended has nothing to do with Torres hit. The fact Torres threw a dirty hit on someone playing for a team still shorthanded from throwing their own dirty hits isn't something that should effect suspension length.

Torres has a history of suspensions, and that should get his ban longer than Keith's. But many Blackhawks fans are coming off as very hypocritical considering their own player was head-hunting and taking out star players less than a month ago.
- Antilles

This is a fair post.

However, I think you are overlooking the Shaw suspension (and how unfair most people think that was) and the cumulative effect of both incidents in under 24 hours on a team in the middle of the playoffs.

Now...can we chat about HOW they lost?

Really quick:

Worst goal I have ever seen scored against a Hawk goalie live in my lifetime. Right in front of me, and the guy was maybe 1-2" from the red line. Almost mathetmatically impossible to score from there given the parrallel, etc.

Goal 1 is on Leddy. He looked HORRID last night. Scared, adn timid, and his inability to take a hit, led to the turnover, led to the goal.

Goal 2 is on Crawford and Keith. i get shooting at the far pad for the rebound, but don't kick it to the slot, and WTF is Keith ever going to learn to cover his backside man? Ever?

I thougth Froik was a beast. Toews looks out of whack, but was throwing checks, and doing other things to help the team. Seabrook is by FAR, and I mean a country mile, their best D man.

Keith...how the hell did he miss 2 POINT blank chances? that's the game. Up 2, and the Coyotes are done. Hawks can't seem to get that next goal.

lastly, that BS stickhandling by Kane in OT can't go unnoticed. Why? This was a flash back to old, selfish Kane, and that's just stupid, stupid hockey and those turnovers high in the offensive end always come back and bite....hard.

Don't see how they win 3 of 4 without Hossa, Smith playing amazing, Crawford letting in crap goals, and relyinig on guys like Kruger, Leddy, Hayes/Saad/etc to play a lot of minutes.

They may give the old college try hard on Thursday, come out firing but if Smith holds fort, then it's all back on Crawford to match that...and guess what...he hasn't shown he can do that..and until he wins a playoff round I refuse to buy into this guy. Goalie is the most mentally challenging position in sports outside of NFL QB and Crawford doesn't look to have the stones to handle it....