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Keith Hit Thread


gramowar

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You're right, it should be more. However, due to the way the league is currently structured, Keith can't receive 10, 15, 20+ games as the precedent has already been set this year with what other players have received.

After watching how the NFL cracked down on the Saints, my first reaction was, "That seems way too harsh." However, after quick thought, I realized that the NFL will do whatever it takes to get things out of the league quickly. The NFL suspension to the Saints may seem overly harsh, but you can bet your bottom dollar no other team will even consider placing bounties on other teams.

And this is what the NHL should do with headshots. If you want it out of the game, you have to start setting the precedent next season. Tell the league that hits like Doan's and Keith's will not be tolerated and a suspension of 20 games will be the precedent. This is enough to deter any player, whether they make $600,000 or $7,000,000 a year think twice about targeting the head of another player. So a player who makes $7 million would forfeit $1,750,000 in salary, while the a $600,000 would forfeit $150,000 (not to mention the possibility of losing their spot when they return).

This should be the standard, but I do not have high hopes that the NHL can get it right when it comes to protecting their players.

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Thats the type of cheap shot where u go after the guy the very next shift.

Bieksa saw the hit, he was on the ice and he didnt go after Keith.. instead he gets into a staring contest with Bickell..

If im Kassian and i see our top players get elbowed like that im would go apecrap on Keith no code, just beat the crap out of him.

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You nailed it. Ya, the Canucks went thru the motions but at the end of the game the Hawks didn't pay the physical price they had to for there to be a clear message not only to other teams they will face down the road but also to the NHL reffing. Once again the refs were allowed to minimize this hit with 2 minutes followed by miscondicts and PPs to the Hawks for half hearted attempts at payback. The book on Van was written by the Hawks not the Bruins. It makes no dif whether the retribution was inflicted on Keith it could just as easily been Kane. Bottom line was someone had to pay for the Keith hit and they did not!

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I really like the idea of making people pay more heavily for deliberate headshots. I think it would be a great if next season the league ruled that all suspensions handed out for deliberate headshots included half (or rounded down to the nearest complete game) of the games to be served during any playoff run regardless of when the suspension is handed out. If a team does not make the playoffs, any unserved games will be served at the start of the following season or in the event of a players retirement, turned into a fine equal to their pay for the number of unserved suspension games.

So, for example, if a player gets a 3 game suspension, 2 games would be served during the regular season and 1 during their team's first playoff game of that season or the start of the next regular season.

Not only would that hurt teams and hopefully get them to encourage their players against such hits, it could hurt players more than just a regular suspension by making them harder to trade during the season if they have a pending suspension for the playoffs.

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Completely agree with all of this. I know this season they can't suspend Keith for more, because the precedent has been set. But if the league was serious about player safety they would make a tape in the offseason of all the suspendable hits from this year and send it out to the teams stating what those will earn next season, which should be significantly more.

Isn't coming off the bench to join a scrum an automatic 10 game suspension? Yet a blatant hit like this to injure is 5. Next year a hit like Keith's, whether first time offender or not, should warrant absolutely no less than 10 games.

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Why is 5 games an acceptable suspension for a hit like this? That is a measly 6% of the season. It's a joke. If they want to get players to stop it's a pretty simple solution. Hand out suspensions that actually mean something. 10, 15, 20 games. Some of these hits are blatant attempts to injure that could easily end a guy's season, or even a career. Yet we have been conditioned to accept 5 games as suitable punishment. Why?

Especially at this point in the season. A suspension at this stage should be issued so that it overlaps into the playoffs to make it significant and discourage players from pulling this crap. To set out to injure someone at this stage and, in doing so, possibly taking them out of a line up that could possibly be the opposition at some point really means that that the pros outweight the cons in doing so....suspended players simply get a rest in preparation for the playoffs and return in order to participate. It really isn't much of a deterrent at all when you may eliminate a top player who you'll possibly face sometime during the playoff run and it allows for an agenda of doing so. This has to be prevented.

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I agree, head shots, especially blatant head shots need to be addressed firmly. Keith's hit is no exception.

Now, in Keiths' defense ... ( and please hear me on this, though I know it'll be hard ) ... the game was extremly chippy with the Canucks running the Hawk's smaller players continuously ( see the hits on Shaw, Kruger and Keith ). The Canucks have their book on how to play the Hawks and it is to hit the smaller finese players high, hard and often. This game was no exception and with the late hit on Keith by Daniel a good couple of seconds after he passed the puck up ice from the corner it was the preverbial straw on a camels back. What Keith did was wrong but put yourself in his skates or any other Canuck who just got his head hammered into the glass coupled with high targeted hit after another on your teammates. This is hockey and it is a war out there and these players are human. Keith will get his suspension. Will Daniel for his late shoulder to head on Keith in the corner, no, will Burrows for attempting to knee Keith's groin, no. You know Canuck fans, the reason why the Canucks are disliked around the league is not because they are good, I think everyone knows and acknowleges this. It is because of the way they play the game which was perfectly depicted in last night's tilt. The Canucks play a style of hockey that is designed to draw penalties as they have had great success with their power play and this plays into their recipe for winning. The isssue is that with the borderline physical play coupled with the antics some of the players pull ( like biting, hair pulling and now kneeing ) coupled with the complaining when no penalties are called for the response leads the opposition and the opposition's fanbase to just say ... What the f***!

Keith made a mistake and will get a suspension.

I hope Daniel is OK and able to return.

Peace out.

Sorry, but your inner troll is showing, despite the cute "peace out(s)" and "I hope(s)" meant to cleverly disguise it.

We're still not in the mood, so you can perhaps tell someone who cares now? And the swear filter bypassing simply seals the deal....

(I tried to warn you, but it's too raw and the wrong place to share stories "in Keith's defense")

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I agree, head shots, especially blatant head shots need to be addressed firmly. Keith's hit is no exception.

Now, in Keiths' defense ... ( and please hear me on this, though I know it'll be hard ) ... the game was extremly chippy with the Canucks running the Hawk's smaller players continuously ( see the hits on Shaw, Kruger and Keith ). The Canucks have their book on how to play the Hawks and it is to hit the smaller finese players high, hard and often. This game was no exception and with the late hit on Keith by Daniel a good couple of seconds after he passed the puck up ice from the corner it was the preverbial straw on a camels back. What Keith did was wrong but put yourself in his skates or any other Canuck who just got his head hammered into the glass coupled with high targeted hit after another on your teammates. This is hockey and it is a war out there and these players are human. Keith will get his suspension. Will Daniel for his late shoulder to head on Keith in the corner, no, will Burrows for attempting to knee Keith's groin, no. You know Canuck fans, the reason why the Canucks are disliked around the league is not because they are good, I think everyone knows and acknowleges this. It is because of the way they play the game which was perfectly depicted in last night's tilt. The Canucks play a style of hockey that is designed to draw penalties as they have had great success with their power play and this plays into their recipe for winning. The isssue is that with the borderline physical play coupled with the antics some of the players pull ( like biting, hair pulling and now kneeing ) coupled with the complaining when no penalties are called for the response leads the opposition and the opposition's fanbase to just say ... What the f***!

Keith made a mistake and will get a suspension.

I hope Daniel is OK and able to return.

Peace out.

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If ever there is a clear cut example of the classic head shot the league claims it wants gone; enter this as exhibit A. In the exhibition season James Wisniewski got eight games for a less malicious hit to the head. Rome in the finals gets 4(for a 1/2 second late hit) which has to equate to at least 8 regular season. If Keith gets less than 8, the league will lose any and all credibility in regards to discipline and teams built like Boston will be in for a long playoff run playing on the wrong side of the rule book. My guess is that Shanny justifies Keith's hit as a response to the earlier hit by Sedin and judge it to be reactionary as opposed to pre-meditated. (Despite allegations of threats made by Keith as alluded to by Henrik). I expect 2 or 3 games.

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Don't you have your own board to post your 'insightful' gum-flappery on? This is the Canucks board, what did you expect the discussion to be here when one of your exalted Hawks pulls a blatant move like this? I can just hear your brain exploding if I now tried to mitigate Todd Bertuzzi's behavior and wrote "Bertuzzi is human, he made a mistake" in regards to the Moore incident....... :rolleyes:

Duncan Keith was a player I once actually admired for his gritty, solid defensive play, couldn't envision a better pairing than he and Seabrook, but after his first incident with Cooke and now this one, he's displaying a history of behavior that makes him a pariah and repeat offender. Hopefully Shanny gets it right and your boy is missing from games for awhile. 5 would be good, longer would be even better.

Edit: You're such a hypocrite....... you follow up your 'human' comment by throwing in this below? It's ok for your pretty boy to be 'human' but nobody else is? You drag up two incidents from a few years ago and expect us to assign you some credibility when in fact you and your fellow troll from last night whine about it when Canucks fans do it to illustrate Keith's less than stellar behavior on the ice......

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Ed Willes' take:

Midway through the second period of Wednesday night’s game in Chicago, the TV crew began to fret over the Vancouver Canucks’ various attempts to exact revenge on Duncan Keith.

“They can’t spend the rest of the game running after Duncan Keith,” they said. “They’re preoccupied with Duncan Keith,” they repeated. “There goes another Canuck after Duncan Keith.”

Apparently this was a trend. The Canucks, in fact, were running after Keith. They were preoccupied with Keith. This game became about Duncan Keith.

But if anyone thinks the Canucks lost their minds in Chicago, if anyone thinks their response was less than appropriate, sorry, you just haven’t been paying attention.

The Canucks did exactly what they had to do at the United Center. They had to respond after Keith’s chicken-excrement hit on Daniel Sedin, and we’re not talking about a power-play goal. If they would have let that hit go, then you could seriously question their actions.

As it is, Keith might have done Team Lethargy a favour. For the first time in three weeks, the Canucks looked engaged and looked like they cared. If that’s the takeaway from this game — and not, say, a prolonged concussion to Daniel — then mark this date down.

This team needed something to fire it up. And there was fire in Chicago on Wednesday night.

The play in question occurred 13½ minutes into the first period in an affair that had already taken on an edge. Jannik Hansen scored on the game’s first shift. Daniel finished a hit on Keith that was high. Just prior to Keith’s retaliation, Alex Edler flattened Hawks forward Andrew Shaw.

An aerial pass was then sent over Daniel’s head and as he moved to chase the puck, Keith delivered an elbow to the point of his chin. Sedin went down, didn’t appear to lose consciousness, tried to play a shift on the ensuing power play, then called it a night.

Those, at least, are the facts of the case, your honour, and they will be reviewed in great detail in forthcoming days. But, for once, the Canucks didn’t wait for the officiating crew and/or Brendan Shanahan to mete out justice. For once, the Canucks took matters into their own hands.

They basically turned the second period into one prolonged scrum and expended considerable energy trying to get at Keith. True, they didn’t succeed — their best work was a goal-mouth scrum started by Zack Kassian which ended in a dogpile on the Blackhawks’ defenceman — but, like the final score in this one, that was beside the point.

The Canucks, who’ve been pushed around too many times in the last three seasons, sent a message and, as long as hockey is a violent contact sport, that will be a necessary part of the game.

Two seasons ago in the playoffs, the Canucks capitulated in the face of the Hawks’ aggression. Last season, it was a crucial element in the Bruins’ seven-game win in the Stanley Cup final. Admittedly, that’s an oversimplification of those two series, but the physical element was telling in both cases.

The Gandhi approach, it seems, might work in the regular season or if you’re trying to throw off the shackles of the British Raj. But when your Art Ross-trophy winning star has just been laid out by the cheapest of cheap shots in a game against your archrival, then it’s time for action.

The Canucks acted. Now it’s up to them to keep that level of emotion in their game.

There was no immediate word on Daniel’s condition after the game and, because the injury involved the head, it would be stupid to speculate on its severity. As mentioned, this incident takes on a much darker aspect if he’s out for any length of time, and that’s where Sheriff Shanny comes in.

It’s interesting to note that Shanahan was announcing a three-game suspension to the Coyotes’ Shane Doan shortly after Keith’s hit on Sedin. Tuesday night in Dallas, Doan elbowed the Stars’ Jamie Benn in the head in a play that, on the surface, had some similarities to the play in Chicago.

Shanahan did say Doan was a repeat offender, but he also acknowledged that there was a hockey element to the Coyotes captain's hit, it wasn’t intentional and it didn’t result in an injury.

Keith, on the other hand, called his shot, according to Henrik in his post-game comments; the puck was nowhere near Daniel; and there was an injury. If it’s not at least three games for Keith, it will be a travesty.

But no matter what happens, the Canucks have their cause. The fire’s been lit. If they let it go out, they really do have a problem.

Read more: http://www.theprovin...l#ixzz1prtdNQHV

and it is exactly how I feel on the subject.....except that we didn't respond with enough force or conviction. Someone needed to be decked, flat out. I'm not usually one to condone or support violence but, in cases like this, you've got to make 'em pay. The only thing likely playing in the back of everyone's minds: Bertuzzi tried to do that once and we all know how that ended up. Sometimes the powers that be don't care WHY you did what you did, it's simply the result of the response/punch that will determine things. So it's a risky response, but something that must be done.

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