Jump to content
The Official Site of the Vancouver Canucks
Canucks Community

Crackdown on Slashing


Recommended Posts

I thought PPP did a great job summarizing what I already think.  The skill needs to be brought out and the dead wood that can't keep up can head to another league.  Will there be pain? Yes.  But with a Newall Brown PP and a tough no nonsense coach, this COULD benefit the Canucks (I doubt it but we shall see haha).

 

https://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/2017/9/18/16323986/nhl-referees-cracking-down-on-stick-infractions-pre-season-marc-methot-sidney-crosby

 

 

"When you’re a child, it’s your parents’ or caregivers’ job to tell you that, no, you can’t actually whack your sibling with a stick. In the NHL, in the brave new world of the 21st century, someone has to have a gruesome injury so gross only ten year olds want to see the video, for the league to crack down on whacking a guy’s hands with your stick.

 

This is the elephant in the room, the NHL has decided they can see after all.

In the first pre-season game, LA vs Vancouver, there were four slashing penalties, two for each team.

 

In Sunday’s games there were more. The Flyers played the Islanders at an offsite game so there is no game sheet, but Broadstreet’s recap lists three slashing calls and one delayed penalty on a slash that resulted in a goal.

 

The Vegas - Vancouver game on Sunday evening was slash - whistle, slash - whistle, slash - whistle. The Canucks are slow learners on this new way of doing things. The total slashing calls were 5 -1 for Vancouver.

 

In all of these games, the calls predominated in the first and second periods, so the plan seems to be to beat the players over the head with the idea that you can’t, well, hit guys on the hands whenever you like.

 

Lest you think this is an NHL problem, two Swedes, Philip Holm and Adrian Kempe were penalized twice each for the infraction. So lazily lolling along behind a guy and one-arm swinging your stick, or two-hand axe chopping if you’re really trying to smash all those small bones, is a world-wide phenomenon.

 

There will be outrage over this. And as the Vegas game shows, a smart team full of fast young players who don’t need to use such methods aren’t going to get called, so there will be no “evening up” the power plays.

 

I can already feel the groundswell of complaints — when it’s your team called that is. But it’s just the pre-season, the games don’t matter, and the guy swinging his stick and going to sit down for it is showing the coach he’s either lazy or gets out of position too easy or is tired of being checked hard (see Crosby v Methot). So showing himself up for what he is, is fine with me."

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm all for it.  This isn't lacrosse.  You shouldn't be whacking the guy with your stick to get him to give up the puck.  Sure there will be loads of penalties in the short term, but eventually the players will get the message.  It worked with all the hooking and holding.

 

In addition, if anything, all these extra penalties in the pre-season will give teams more opportunities to practice their PP and PK.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's to the point of being ridiculous. Yesterday's game one of the Canucks players received a slashing penalty and he never touched the Knight's player. He tapped his stick and got a penalty for that. I'm all for calling blatant slashes to the hands, but they're calling everything and anything. Really disrupts the flow of the game.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The commentators mentioning how similar it was to 2005-06 did ring true. It's ridiculous now, but eventually the players will learn, just like they did after the lockout. Look at the game before and after the lockout and the difference is stark. This change is more minor, but it makes sense to me. No point in whacking at a guy's hands when the puck is on the ice. If you want to make contact, do it with your body, not your stick.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Ruxin'sVinegarStrokes said:

But with a Newall Brown PP and a tough no nonsense coach, this COULD benefit the Canucks (I doubt it but we shall see haha).

I think this hurts us the most.  Our team will be even older and slower than last year(imagine that) if you count the subtraction of Burrows and Hansen which means more lazy penalties.  The Sedins were already pretty bad for this the last two season, this year will be even worse if they are cracking down. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Refs are always whistle happy in preseason, then ever so slowly they start putting the whistle away. By the time April rolls around, there is absolutely zero consistency among league officials and plays that were obvious penalties in October / November stop being called all together.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do hope they continue cracking down and hammering home the point. Its gotten ridiculous and literally everybody does it because they know they will get away with it. If you aren't doing it then you are not doing everything you can to win. So much of what is considered "good defense" is just crosschecking, slashing and holding. We have entered another dead puck era because GMs are actively letting players get away with anything and everything so that games stay close and artificially increase parity. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

It's the preseason. They are conditioning the players to stay away from doing certain things while the games don't mean anything. 

 

 I been watchin this game for over 3 decades it's always been like this with penalties and rules in the preseason and early part of season. Remember how many years they called clutching and grabbing early in the season, by Xmas it would be back to normal.  

 

The hand slashing did get out of hand and they'll condition the players to stay away from it in preseason, penalties will fall off in regular season and even more a month or two into the regular season. It's normal. This is what the preseason is for. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Brad Marchand said:

The Oilers had 12(!) powerplays during their split-squad game in Edmonton against the Flames. 5 of the Flames' penalties were for slashing.

The flames cried to the league about all of the slashes on gaudreau this is what happens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...