Hit on Savard brings two major problems to light

By Chris Maza
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

The Boston sports world (or at least that fanatical, hardcore faction known as Bruins fans) is buzzing in the wake of the brutal hit laid upon center Marc Savard. Savard took an elbow to the side of the head from Pittsburgh Penguins winger Matt Cooke after putting a puck on net that left him down on the ice with a grade 2 concussion during the B's 2-1 loss.

Take a look at the hit here.

Was it a dirty hit? Was it an ILLEGAL hit? Shouldn't Cooke be suspended?

First of all, yes, it was a dirty hit. However, it was technically not an illegal hit because the NHL has no hard, black-and-white rules about hits to the head. Elbowing could have been called, but it would have been a tough sell because at full speed, it does look like a shoulder. Even when slowed down, it is not an obvious infraction. Dirty players like Cooke know how to mask dirty hits. He didn't come flying in with his elbows up, but lifted his elbow to head level just as he was passing Savard. The league is now trying to cover up the fact it was an elbow by stating they looked at the tape for about an hour and a half and ruled it was a shoulder.

The real issue here is the fact that regardless of whether or not a hit delivered to the head was with a shoulder, elbow, hand or whatever, there should be rules punishing players who put other players in serious danger with obvious blows to the head. Cooke realistically can't be suspended for a hit that wasn't a penalty. And that is the league's fault.

The league has shown little interest in protecting players in the past and this is just another example of it. Every rule change the league has implemented has been in order to increase excitement in the game. Some have argued that while it wasn't an obvious elbow, it should have been called anyway, pointing out how many times questionable hooking or tripping calls have been made. There's a very real difference here: The league's focus on tripping and hooking was not a measure taken to make the game safer, but rather to increase offense, give forwards more free reign to maneuver in the zone uninhibited.

I'm not saying that these guys need to be babied. There was a time not all that long ago when players played without helmets at all. But the fact of the matter is players are bigger, stronger and faster than they ever were and with the league expansion, the talent isn't there the way it used to me, so there are more goons, more headhunters, that make their living just blasting people without contributing any talent to a team. There's nothing wrong with enforcers. But when enforcers become headhunters, then there is a problem and the league is the only entity that has the power to curb that problem and they can do that by enforcing penalties for hits to the head they way they do in the college game now.

These rules should not limit players who rely on toughness from using that attribute, but rather should encourage clean physical play. Yes, it exists and is one of the things that makes hockey such a great and unique sport.

And while we're on the subject of toughness, that subject is the second problem this incident brought to light. Toughness. The Bruins don't have any.

The best player on the team just got laid out and whether it was a dirty hit or not, someone should have responded. Michael Ryder, for example, was behind the play at the blue line, saw it happen and did nothing, continuing to coast into the zone. But let's not lay it all on one guy. No one did anything, whether immediate or over the last five minutes of the game. If a team's best player gets hit, you expect that team to respond an lay some lumber on the opposing team's best player, but Sidney Crosby was virtually untouched. Even Evgeni Malkin would have been a suitable target. But instead the Bruins showed no heart, no guts and showed the league they are a group you can walk all over.