Dangerous hits spotlighted in Round 2 of the NHL playoffs

The subject of “big hits” seems to be on every team’s lips these playoffs. Not fisticuffs-style hits, although Ryan Reaves dropping Curtis McKenzie to the ice in Tuesday’s Blues-Stars contest was no joke, but the hits that are high and late, leaving players curled up on the ice in heaps of pain.

Perhaps it’s because we’re down to watching just eight teams so every hit replay gets a good look. But those hits seem to be bigger and more frequent — and a means for debate among coaches, fans and just about everyone in between.

The Capitals-Penguins series has its fair share of high hits and suspensions with Washington’s Brooks Orpik's late hit on Olli Maatta and Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang's interference on Marcus Johannson. Coaches’ commentary has gotten just as much attention as the suspensions themselves, mainly Caps coach Barry Trotz insinuating that the Pens were getting preferential treatment when it came to Orpik’s punishment.

Then the series between the Islanders and Lightning got into the mix on Tuesday night with a tilt consisting of a combined 78 hits — maybe the pre-game run-in between Travic Hamonic and Brian Boyle was a teaser to the hit-heavy bout. The big hits in question, however: New York’s Thomas Hickey’s staggering hit on Tampa Bay’s  Jonathan Drouin and later Boyle’s high hit on Hickey in overtime. Isles coach John Capuano was reportedly fuming after the game when Boyle’s chuck at Hickey’s head didn’t receive any disciplinary response, while Bolts coach Jon Cooper categorized the hit as not being as hard as the hit that took Drouin out the a portion of the game.

The long and short of it is that the NHL’s Department of Player Safety is getting venom spewed at it, no matter what call it makes. It isn’t a new argument, by any means. But it sure as heck has taken on a new form with players being clocked in the head left and right in the second round of postseason play.

Yahoo! Sports had an interesting piece the morning after the hit-laden Bolts-Isles game, asking the reading public what it expects from the DoPS. It’s a fair and open-ended question — is it steeper punishment for repeat offenders that you want or stronger punishments based on injury? Or maybe, does there just need to be more “education” about high hits? The article explains Player Safety’s role in educating players about the severity of late hits and the consistency with which punishment is handed out:

We can all agree that the DoPS as a mechanism to change players’ behavior has worked, from the suspensions to those vital videos that explain the suspensions. There are always going to be blurred lines as far as what’s legal and allowed, but for the most part they’ve done a solid job in being like ‘hey, don’t target the head’ and ‘hey, don’t hit that guy there into the boards’ and the players following through. 

Does a play like the Letang’s one fall into the re-education mission? It’s interference, for sure. But it’s a hit delivered more in the flow of play than, say, the Orpik one on Maatta. And frankly, it’s a hit that Letang will be expected to deliver again by his coaches.

Which brings us to where big hits fit into the game. New York Post writer Larry Brooks — who recently got "verbally hit" by Rangers defenseman Dan Boyle — wrote that hits are part of the playoff hockey narrative:

Eliminate hits like Hickey’s and Boyle’s, and the game becomes two-hand touch. 

The hits and the relentless physical nature of the game have created a Bad Blood Series where no history or rivalry previously existed between the clubs. This was a 60-minute-plus departure from the two vanilla affairs the clubs previous had split in the Sunshine State. 

And the truculent nature of the match even preceded the opening puck drop when Travis Hamonic bumped the ubiquitous Boyle at the center line during the pregame warm-up. 

“We all knew what kind of a game it was going to be,” Boyle said. “I’d never really been a part of anything like that before, but that’s OK.”

Some still don’t seem to find it OK, however, particularly when the well-being of a player's skull comes into play.

There really is no immediate solution, and this probably won’t be the end of the discussion over detrimental hits in these playoffs. Heck, who knows how hard Ryan Reaves gets checked in the next Blues-Stars game after his behavior following the tussles with Curtis McKenzie.

But then that’s getting into retaliatory hits, which requires its own discussion all together.