Colin Campbell...

For the first time, I watched the Mike "4 Career Goals" Mottau's hit on Frans Nielsen. Very reminiscent of Brandon Sutter giving the Rayden Torpedo to Alexei Cherepanov in the Summit Series. He left his feet, he was looking for an injury. Here, Mottau headhunted Nielsen. A disgusting play on par with Chris Simon attacking Ryan Hollweg and Todd Bertuzzi-ing Steve Moore, and he gets 2 games for it.

Michael Peca touches a linesman's arm, automatic 5 game suspension. (Yes, I'm familiar with the ruling on an automatic suspension when an official is touched.)

Doug Weight gives a clean, feet-on-the-ice check to Sutter, and people vilify Weight for two weeks.

"Disciplinarian" Colin Campbell - and I use the term disciplinarian very lightly - claims it wasn't a direct hit to the head. Well, maybe he didn't see Mottau single out Nielsen and then LEAP off the ice and attack him.

Very questionable ruling.

Some plays are accidental. Weight on Sutter, for example. Jason Doig, while a bad player and a victim of the lockout (where only skilled players stay be in the NHL), injured Eric Lindros for the season, not on purpose but from a hard hit. Same can be said for Scott Stevens leveling Lindros.

However, my view on plays where the person is obviously looking for blood is that they should be suspended until the injured player can play again. Mottau should be out 2-3 months or however long it takes his victim to return. If it means a player will never play again, as it should be in Bertuzzi's case, so be it.

Anyone who wants to take the NHL to task on this horrific ruling can do so Thursdays at 4 as Gary Bettman goes on XM Home Ice 204 (and Sirius 208) to take calls from the fans. No doubt he will be hearing about this next Thursday (as I'm assuming he doesn't host a show on Thanksgiving), and no doubt he will be sticking to party-lines and reiterating what Campbell said, as he never makes waves and always touts the league as in the right. While I love the fact that the Commissioner of the NHL has a radio call-in show (that is always a good listen), I wish he wasn't so vanilla and he would stray from middle-0f-the-road, my-employees-are-always-right answers. If he came out and said Campbell flubbed this, maybe something could be done to change it.

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Links to mentioned videos...

Sutter flying into Cherepanov

Nielsen getting attacked by Mottau

Weight's clean hit on Sutter

Moore getting his neck broken by Bertuzzi

Kudos to Doug Weight...

I forgot to mention this on my earlier post, and as a Ranger fan, it's tough for me to praise the Islanders. However, if life were a MySpace blog post, I would give "2 kudos" to Doug Weight for his hit on Brandon Sutter Saturday night.

Brandon, son of Devil's coach and all-around nice guy Brent (does sarcasm come out well online?), is a cheap-shot artist himself who has never seen a dirty hit he didn't like.

Am I saying that Weight's hit was dirty? Absolutely, positively not. He never left his feet. He didn't hit with an elbow. It was just a rock-hard, solid hit. It was the kind people praised Scott Stevens for when he delivered them.

I'm also saying Sutter deserved it. Now, I'm not one to root for the injury of others, and indeed, Sutter didn't have any injuries suffered. But he is a Ryan Hollweg-type player, going for the hit regardless of the situation, regardless of the safety of the other player involved. Witness him doing a Raiden-esque Torpedo (you know, from Mortal Kombat) on Alexei Cherepanov for no reason other than to injure. Maybe his revered hockey family never taught him that leaving your feet to hit someone is illegal. (Oh, wasn't dad coaching?) And injure he did, as Cherepanov didn't play in another game in the 8 game series (the hit was in Game 2).

Once again, I'm not rooting for the injury of Sutter. But I am saying that this completely legal hit was a fantastic moment on Super Saturday in the NHL. People are calling for Weight to be suspended, for the league to look into this matter because it was a head hit. Hey, if Weight was shorter, it would have been a check to his shoulders. You can't fault a man for being tall.

On Voros, Renney, Being Undefeated, and Cherepanov...

1) When the Rangers didn't re-sign Sean Avery, I never imagined that his replacement would be Aaron Voros. His celebrating the goal right in front of Colin White was awesome. By the way, Voros had 3 points in only 13 minutes of ice time.

2) This Dubinsky-Zherdev-Voros line (the "PlayStation" line) is pretty good. Based on prior seasons, the over-under on how many games until coach Tom Renney breaks them apart is 6 games. Dawes-Callahan-Prucha, anyone?

3) Being undefeated is nice, but it's still early. Last year, the Rangers were down 2-1 after the 2nd period of the opening game of the season against Florida. They scored 4 goals in the 3rd, won the first game of 2007-08 by a score of 5-2, and fans chanted "We Want the Cup". A nice touch, but too early. And much like Marek Malik's 3 assist performance in that first game, this streak will come to an end. But it's a good 10 points to have when fighting for a playoff spot in March.

4) It's very sad about Alexei Cherepanov. He was going to be a great talent in Ranger blue, I believe. I had been salivating at the thought of him and Artem Anisimov on the same line. The Rangers basically stole him at the 2007 Entry Draft. The rumors were that Washington was going to take him with the 5th selection so he could one day play with Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. The Rangers then tried to move up to 3rd in a trade with Phoenix so they could take him there. The price was too high, Phoenix took Kyle Turris, Washington grabbed Karl Alzner, and Cherepanov fell to 17th because teams were afraid he was never going to come to America to play. Turns out they were sadly correct, although he was planning on coming over after his 2-year deal was up in Russia. 

I won't bore anyone with lessons on life. I'm sure everyone reading this already knows life is fragile and I hope everyone is happy with their life.

Cherepanov

Thanks to the Internet, we're sure everyone's heard about Alexei Cherepanov by now. And personally, I don't know what else to say except that it sucks. Zach will probably have more to say about this later. But for now, just count your blessings, no matter how few they might be...