My personal opinion is that it should be allowed and is perfectly legal in my mind but I disagree with most of you that it would not result in a suspension in todays kinder, gentler NHL for two reasons:
1) The injury that resulted from the hit. Recently, when a player goes down the arm almost instantly comes up and when it is questionable if it was a "head shot" or not the recent calls have usually resulted in 5 and a game with a league review to follow.
2) Listening to many of the GM's at the recent meetings I heard over and over again about hits on vulnerable players who were already "engaged" with another player. From what I remember of that hit there could be an argument that he was already engaged with one, if not two, Devils before Stevens lowered the boom on him.
This doesn't even take into account the heat the NHL is under right now and if a "star" like Lindros went down today because of this hit I would almost guarantee a suspension.
Myself, I would love to see guys like Stevens and Marchment still around, if for no other reason, just so I could watch the tears flow on the main board.