Actually, as another poster said, there really wasn't hatred like u say for Steckel at all. It was a bit of a fluke play in which Sid was in a sense to blame for what happened as he was busy watching the play.
And as far as comparable, there was only one owner complaining about their respective incident, and it wasn't Mario/Burkle. Now if you mean the cause of injuries were comparable as they were flukes, then yes.
All I'm going to say is that I have a hard time believing that Pittsburgh would have nothing to say if Chris Neil came at Crosby the same way Cooke did to Karlsson and resulted in the same injury. I'm positive the reaction would be similar if not worst to what Ottawa's outcry was to Cooke.
Was there an exaggeration immediately? Yes, but any fan base and franchise is going to react that way (I know Montreal would for sure lol). I never thought Cooke purposely injured Karlsson, I just thought the incident was slightly reckless, that combined with the top performing player in the league at the time going down indefinitely is quite a hit to take. Most people around the team at the time thought Cooke just ended our playoff hopes because Karlsson was the reason we were winning games.
In the end, I'm not defending some of the extreme things said out of Ottawa since the incident, I'm just saying it would be coming from Pittsburgh as well if the situation were reversed. If anything this incident raised the rivalry between the teams a bit which is always a good thing as an NHL fan.
As for tomorrow, here's to a good game. Like I mentioned earlier, I don't expect anything to happen other than a challenge issued to Cooke, and I wouldn't be surprised if nothing happens at all either because hyped games usually disappoint.