Slashing the Stick Penalty Question

[LaCarriere]

It really looks to me like he breaks the stick himself.

The slash happens and he immediately puts heavy pressure on the stick to try and break it, drawing the penalty.

just what I am seeing there, I would guess the ref agreed and thus - no call.

It was definitely broken from the slash, but it still looked like it was in one piece. The second he would have done anything with it the end would have went flying off.

I agree he looked to put some weight on it, but only so the ref could clearly see it was broken and he would be going to the bench before the play to get a new stick, and not during.

It should have been a delay of game penalty though. It was kind of ridiculous to slash the stick that hard for no reason.

 

[Michel Beauchamp]

That should be 2 minutes for being stupid...

That said, a slash to a body part during a stoppage in play should be a penalty as it is a physical foul.

Breaking a stick is different as the player can simply get a new stick before play resumes.

The only exception could be a defensive zone faceoff after an icing, as the tactic could be used to get a breather.

 

[PatriceBergeronFan]

It really looks to me like he breaks the stick himself.

The slash happens and he immediately puts heavy pressure on the stick to try and break it, drawing the penalty.

just what I am seeing there, I would guess the ref agreed and thus - no call.

He was clearly leaning on his stick only to have it break under him.

 

[uncommonsense52]

I'm okay with a penalty for slashing in the case of a broken stick. You shouldn't be swinging that hard near a guy, and you are taking him out of the play by breaking his stick. I mean, with composite sticks, it's certainly easy to hit a "sweet spot" and it break a little unfortunately. But I guess that's just part of the breaks, literally.

However, when the guy gives the stick a tap and it falls out of the player's hand, and they call a penalty. I'm not a fan of that. Tell the guy to grip the stick better.

 

[HartAU]

Interesting that this is indeed on the nhl website that "any slash that break the opponents stick shall be deemed an automatic penalty," as you found, it is not in the rulebook!

That's because half the time the NHL website links to a 5 year old rule book. In the last month or two they've finally started just linking everything to the current PDF. Nearly every day someone on these boards was posting the rules from NHL.com not knowing that they were from a bunch of years back.

But you're correct, there's nothing in the 2014/15 rules about an automatic penalty for a slash that breaks the stick.