Tom Wilson dirty hit (Suspension incoming?)

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Riptide

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Dec 29, 2011
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What ever happened to “keep your head up”? I get that it was a dirty hit from Wilson by today’s standards. But in all honesty how do you cleanly hit a player now a days when he’s in that position? Hip checks are too low now, regular hit would hit the head of a player who just took a shot as his head was lowered. So how do you hit him cleanly in that situation? Can players just put there head down now and cut to the slot unimpeded? Are defenders just not supposed to hit the player in that situation now?

While I agree that players need to look out for their own safety and that Sundqvist put himself in a terrible position there... many other players find ways to make hits on forwards coming across the blueline without getting suspended for the hit. Why can't Wilson? It's not even all that hard... all he would have had to do was slow up a touch and instead of jumping or raising his shoulder into the hit, crouch down a little and he would have completely flattened Sundqvist... and it likely would have been legal. Instead he went as high as he could, and tried to murder him.
 

Ugene Magic

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Oct 17, 2008
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What ever happened to “keep your head up”? I get that it was a dirty hit from Wilson by today’s standards. But in all honesty how do you cleanly hit a player now a days when he’s in that position? Hip checks are too low now, regular hit would hit the head of a player who just took a shot as his head was lowered. So how do you hit him cleanly in that situation? Can players just put there head down now and cut to the slot unimpeded? Are defenders just not supposed to hit the player in that situation now?

It's called taking a hit to deliver a hit. Meaning putting yourself at risk just as much as you put the player you're trying to hit at risk. Even clean hits are risky.

How could he have hit him in that circumstance though? Change your total trajectory to the body from the shoulders to the hips. Clean hit even though he's bent over. Problem is he wants to destroy others while not bring any danger onto himself. Him doing a clean hit there endangered his knees.
 

Habby Gilmore

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Dec 2, 2013
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You can not be looking at the puck and looking in front of you or in the opposite direction and find yourself blindsided. You don't get blindsided only when you're puck watching. This really isn't a hard concept.

My point is that it’s not the hitters fault the the puck carrier isn’t aware that he’s about to get hit. That’s on the puck carrier to be aware of his surroundings in my book. That’s all.
 

IceNeophyte

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Nov 14, 2017
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While I agree that players need to look out for their own safety and that Sundqvist put himself in a terrible position there... many other players find ways to make hits on forwards coming across the blueline without getting suspended for the hit. Why can't Wilson? It's not even all that hard... all he would have had to do was slow up a touch and instead of jumping or raising his shoulder into the hit, crouch down a little and he would have completely flattened Sundqvist... and it likely would have been legal. Instead he went as high as he could, and tried to murder him.

Yep. How many times do we have to see the same predatory hit before we figure out it's intentional?
 

CantLoseWithMatthews

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Sep 28, 2015
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I just want at some accountability to the player for putting himself in such a prime position is all, it’s all on the hitter now days and no one in the guy who puts hit head down cutting into the slot, or skating into a corner after the puck facing the boards. I’m not trying to say the hit aren’t dirty or that they shouldn’t be removed because they totally should. But players need to be more aware too, they put themselves is so much more dengerous positions now then in the past I find.
I agree. if you let yourself get hit in the head, you should also get a hearing
 

Riptide

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Dec 29, 2011
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I just want at some accountability to the player for putting himself in such a prime position is all, it’s all on the hitter now days and no one in the guy who puts hit head down cutting into the slot, or skating into a corner after the puck facing the boards. I’m not trying to say the hit aren’t dirty or that they shouldn’t be removed because they totally should. But players need to be more aware too, they put themselves is so much more dengerous positions now then in the past I find.

They do, and it's stupid. But that doesn't give Wilson free reign to try and murder Sundqvist, just because Sundqvist was stupid enough to put himself in a bad spot. Again, Wilson could have hit Sundqvist legally, and this all would have been forgotten other than a beautiful and devastating hit - Wilson just choose not to do so.
 

Ridley Simon

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Feb 27, 2002
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Riptide stated 186. Why are the numbers different?

Pretty sure I said 187, and was tied with Grabner at 186 and Bura at 188. But any difference would be due to filtering. I put in a games played filter of 50 games as I wanted to eliminate smaller sample sizes. If you remove that games played filter, he falls to 212. However that also gives you 15+ players who played less than 20 or so games, and many of those played less than 10 games.

There's the link, feel free to play around with it.

NHL.com - Stats

tied at 186 was what I was using.

StoneHands is correct. Its 193. BUT, its also surrounded by players with a bunch of PP points. From a purely statistical standpoint, Hyman, Grabner, etc seems to be akin.
 

Habby Gilmore

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They do, and it's stupid. But that doesn't give Wilson free reign to try and murder Sundqvist, just because Sundqvist was stupid enough to put himself in a bad spot. Again, Wilson could have hit Sundqvist legally, and this all would have been forgotten other than a beautiful and devastating hit - Wilson just choose not to do so.

I agree, it was a dirty hit for sure, I’m in no way saying Wilson isn’t deserving of his punishment. I’m just having trouble seeing an outcome in this particular situation were that hit can delivered cleanly by today’s standards. It bothers me that players can hide behind the “blindside” rule and just skate into dangerous situations knowing all the accountability is on the hitter. I don’t want to watch an NHL like that.
 

Its a Trap

Yes I’m still here to piss you off
I just want at some accountability to the player for putting himself in such a prime position is all, it’s all on the hitter now days and no one in the guy who puts hit head down cutting into the slot, or skating into a corner after the puck facing the boards. I’m not trying to say the hit aren’t dirty or that they shouldn’t be removed because they totally should. But players need to be more aware too, they put themselves is so much more dengerous positions now then in the past I find.

My point is that it’s not the hitters fault the the puck carrier isn’t aware that he’s about to get hit. That’s on the puck carrier to be aware of his surroundings in my book. That’s all.

Oh, yay, we're going to do this all over again. His head is not down. It's up. He takes the shot on net without even looking that way and in reality can probably see Wilson's legs quickly coming into view. Are you implying he should have braced himself in the half second he had while being in the typical skating position? His head is up. Stop talking about this situation like he's hunched over reaching for the puck. He literally just shot the puck towards the net. His head is looking forward, not down, he's not crouched like he's reaching. Wilson had all the time in the world to square up for a full body check and instead he leads with his shoulder/arm and makes contact with the head. It doesn't matter if he didn't mean it or mistimed his check. He caught the head first and you can't do that. This really isn't that hard of a concept. What your book says doesn't matter because you're clearly still wishing for hockey from a decade or two ago where nobody cared about head injuries and you weren't really part of the league until you "got your bell rung" a few times.
 

Cellee

Registered User
Dec 20, 2014
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My point is that it’s not the hitters fault the the puck carrier isn’t aware that he’s about to get hit. That’s on the puck carrier to be aware of his surroundings in my book. That’s all.
Players do have to take responsibility, but player's also do not need to try to escalate damage.

I really don't want to see a guy get helicoptered and land face first just to teach him a lesson.
 
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Ezekial

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Nov 22, 2015
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I agree, it was a dirty hit for sure, I’m in no way saying Wilson isn’t deserving of his punishment. I’m just having trouble seeing an outcome in this particular situation were that hit can delivered cleanly by today’s standards. It bothers me that players can hide behind the “blindside” rule and just skate into dangerous situations knowing all the accountability is on the hitter. I don’t want to watch an NHL like that.
I don't like reading stories about players I like not being able to play with their children because they're at a treatment facility for soldiers with PTSD because no other facility is as equipped to treat their type of head trauma.

That's not the NHL I like. I like big hits, but not at the cost of a person's livelihood. There's more to life than getting a hard on because a guy ran into another guy.
 

CantLoseWithMatthews

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Sep 28, 2015
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I agree, it was a dirty hit for sure, I’m in no way saying Wilson isn’t deserving of his punishment. I’m just having trouble seeing an outcome in this particular situation were that hit can delivered cleanly by today’s standards. It bothers me that players can hide behind the “blindside” rule and just skate into dangerous situations knowing all the accountability is on the hitter. I don’t want to watch an NHL like that.
I don't think that's what happened here, but even so, why? Even if he has his eyes closed and is wearing a sign that says "please hit me", why is it bad if he doesn't get his brains scrambled? it's okay if they stay safe out there and don't have lasting health complications due to severe head trauma. and it's a preseason game no less. it's not supposed to be the height of competitive hockey anyway
 

Habby Gilmore

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Dec 2, 2013
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Oh, yay, we're going to do this all over again. His head is not down. It's up. He takes the shot on net without even looking that way and in reality can probably see Wilson's legs quickly coming into view. Are you implying he should have braced himself in the half second he had while being in the typical skating position? His head is up. Stop talking about this situation like he's hunched over reaching for the puck. He literally just shot the puck towards the net. His head is looking forward, not down, he's not crouched like he's reaching. Wilson had all the time in the world to square up for a full body check and instead he leads with his shoulder/arm and makes contact with the head. It doesn't matter if he didn't mean it or mistimed his check. He caught the head first and you can't do that. This really isn't that hard of a concept. What your book says doesn't matter because you're clearly still wishing for hockey from a decade or two ago where nobody cared about head injuries and you weren't really part of the league until you "got your bell rung" a few times.


You’re clearly not getting my point, point is he should have been aware of his surroundings. The hit was dirty this time but next time a clean hit could hurt him even worse or even end his career. If he(and other players) keep putting himself in those situations where they are prone to get drilled(which happens much more frequently now), clean hit or not, and I feel like the blindside rule is encouraging them to not be aware of their surroundings because as long as they don’t see the hit coming, it’s illegal, why would they want to look around? But somehow it’s all the hitters fault?
 

Habby Gilmore

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Dec 2, 2013
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I don't think that's what happened here, but even so, why? Even if he has his eyes closed and is wearing a sign that says "please hit me", why is it bad if he doesn't get his brains scrambled? it's okay if they stay safe out there and don't have lasting health complications due to severe head trauma. and it's a preseason game no less. it's not supposed to be the height of competitive hockey anyway


Hockey is meant to be a battle, not ballet. Don’t play it if your not prepared to get hurt in the process.
 

rumrokh

THORBS
Mar 10, 2006
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You’re clearly not getting my point, point is he should have been aware of his surroundings. The hit was dirty this time but next time a clean hit could hurt him even worse or even end his career. If he(and other players) keep putting himself in those situations where they are prone to get drilled(which happens much more frequently now), clean hit or not, and I feel like the blindside rule is encouraging them to not be aware of their surroundings because as long as they don’t see the hit coming, it’s illegal, why would they want to look around? But somehow it’s all the hitters fault?

So you're talking about some other, fictional, legal hit and not this one, right?
 

saintunspecified

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Nov 30, 2017
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Why is anyone talking about a blindside rule? What blindside rule?

(I thought there was a rule against blindside hits to the head, but that was scrapped in favor of a rule against hits to the head.)
 
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Uncle Duke

Heads up, fellas!
May 14, 2018
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The posts here defending this hit to any degree - ANY DEGREE - are a joke. Players deemed to be in possession of the puck may be legally hit from shoulder to hip so long as the hit does not come from behind. If a player is not sure that he can deliver a hit in that manner, then he needs to lay off the hit. Tom Wilson not only doesn't lay off the hit, he consistently targets the head while delivering the contact in an out of control manner. Anything less than 1o games would be a travesty. Personally, he should be out of the league in my opinion. He has proven to be unable to change despite multiple suspensions in the past.
 
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Habby Gilmore

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Dec 2, 2013
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Why is anyone talking about a blindside rule? What blindside rule?

(I thought there was a rule against blindside hits to the head, but that was scrapped in favor of a rule against hits to the head.)


I’ve seen lots of mentions of “blind side” hits so I just kind of assumed there was a rule. If there is no rule I’m all good then, players are still expected to keep their heads up and be aware. Dirty hit by Wilson, nuff said.
 
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