Tom Wilson hit on Sundqvist: Suspended 20 games

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Only a lunatic would think a 3 minute 1 mile car ride is equivalent to a 2000 mile trip.

or think to use that logic to try to justify this headshot

 

[shtorm2005]

Only a lunatic would think a 3 minute 1 mile car ride is equivalent to a 2000 mile trip.

Flying itself is safe, it's landing and take-offs that are risky. "Experts" use per hour data which includes safe flying time to spread risky parts of the flight.

 

[HanSolo]

I guess my point boils down to this, we can keep punishing these hits and continue to do so, but until players stop leaving themselves prone to hits like this they will just continue to happen.

Players will always be "prone to hits" at one point in a game or another. In this particular incident, Sundqvist committed to getting the puck on goal. We need to dispense with this fallacy already. The league is becoming faster and more skill based, leaving players more exposed than ever. But hits like this have gone down dramatically. The solution isn't to curtail bold and creative hockey plays, it's to crack down on unnecessary hits like this.

Wilson absolutely could've made impact through the body. He loves hitting high and trying to explode into people. He's reckless and dangerous. I guess my point boils down to this: as long as players like Tom Wilson get slapped on the wrists instead of being sent a real message, the few rockbrained thugs like Wilson will continue to endanger players with their predatory hits.

This culture of victim blaming is so absurd.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Flying itself is safe, it's landing and take-offs that are risky. "Experts" use per hour data which includes safe flying time to spread risky parts of the flight.

If you want to compare trips you need to compare trips. Flying 50 miles would be more dangerous than driving 50 miles. But flying 2000 miles is considerably safer than driving 2000 miles.

If you want to parse it even further the simple act of not flying within Alaska puts airtravel on par per journey with driving for an American.

 

[Ogrezilla]

I’m sorry man but if he was aware he wouldn’t have go smoked like he did, no player is gonna take a hit that hard just to get off a shot from a low percentage area. Even if that hit had been delivered cleanly that kid was getting absolutely rocked. Cutting through the center is always a dangerous this to do, and right after a player takes a shot he’s very prone to get hit and generally looking in the direction of the shot he just took.

he was probably aware a hit was coming, but I'm sure he assumed it would be a legal one.

 

[Empoleon8771]

So far, Wilson's suspensions have gone from 2 preseason games to 4 regular season games to 3 playoff games. In terms of regular season games, that's probably 1, 4 and 6 games. Seeing how this hit is similar to the ZAR hit from the playoffs last year, I can't imagine he gets less than 9. I'm hoping for 12, but I'm expecting 10.

 

[Ms Maggie]

@IceNeophyte

Where do you see I rationalize dirty hits? I just wanted to show you that numbers of incidents doesn't show how frequent they are. 4/100 headhits isnt same as 4/1000. Rate is important if we want to find out if intention is there or it's a simple misluck that has to occur because of high rate hitting.

@Ms Maggie



They use per hour data which is not correct. If you compare per trip data, driving is much safer.

Nope. 850 million airline trips (2017, US), 0 fatalities.

2017 Annual and December U.S. Airline Traffic Data | Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Don't know how many auto trips, but about 40,000 fatalities.

Let's say each US person has 2 auto trips per day--which is high but let's go with that. That's 240 billion trips per year. Or 1 fatality for every 6 million trips. Versus zero for every 850 million trips.

Not close. Not close to close.

 

[Habby Gilmore]

Players will always be "prone to hits" at one point in a game or another. In this particular incident, Sundqvist committed to getting the puck on goal. We need to dispense with this fallacy already. The league is becoming faster and more skill based, leaving players more exposed than ever. But hits like this have gone down dramatically. The solution isn't to curtail bold and creative hockey plays, it's to crack down on unnecessary hits like this.

Wilson absolutely could've made impact through the body. He loves hitting high and trying to explode into people. He's reckless and dangerous. I guess my point boils down to this: as long as players like Tom Wilson get slapped on the wrists instead of being sent a real message, the few rockbrained thugs like Wilson will continue to endanger players with their predatory hits.

This culture of victim blaming is so absurd.

I wasn’t trying to take any blame away from Wilson for his dirty hit, I agreed that he should be punished. All I’m saying is that the more players are prone to big hits, the more Wilsons that will need to be suspended. That’s all.

Let’s face it, life/health insurance costs will eventually force the NHL to become a non contact league anyways, so none of this really matters in the end I guess.

 

[The Nuge]

I get that people are outrage because it’s Wilson, but this just isn’t that bad to me. He’s basically skating at him head on, and Sundqvist suddenly turns to shoot. No, Sundqvist didn’t really do anything wrong, but it’s not Wilson’s fault that he suddenly changed positions either. The NHL looks at whether the player changed their body position immediately prior to contact, to determine if the contact with the head was unavoidable, and Sundqvist did.

 

[StrangeVision]

@Ms Maggie

They use per hour data which is not correct. If you compare per trip data, driving is much safer.

Let me just hop in my jet to take a trip to the grocery store...

 

[shtorm2005]

Nope. 850 million airline trips (2017, US), 0 fatalities.

2017 Annual and December U.S. Airline Traffic Data | Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Don't know how many auto trips, but about 40,000 fatalities.

Let's say each US person has 2 auto trips per day--which is high but let's go with that. That's 240 billion trips per year. Or 1 fatality for every 6 million trips. Versus zero for every 850 million trips.

Not close. Not close to close.

Is there a reason you use only US stats?

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

I get that people are outrage because it’s Wilson, but this just isn’t that bad to me. He’s basically skating at him head on, and Sundqvist suddenly turns to shoot. No, Sundqvist didn’t really do anything wrong, but it’s not Wilson’s fault that he suddenly changed positions either. The NHL looks at whether the player changed their body position immediately prior to contact, to determine if the contact with the head was unavoidable, and Sundqvist did.

I know when players suddenly change position I was always taught to explode upwardly at their head.

 

[HanSolo]

I get that people are outrage because it’s Wilson, but this just isn’t that bad to me. He’s basically skating at him head on, and Sundqvist suddenly turns to shoot. No, Sundqvist didn’t really do anything wrong, but it’s not Wilson’s fault that he suddenly changed positions either. The NHL looks at whether the player changed their body position immediately prior to contact, to determine if the contact with the head was unavoidable, and Sundqvist did.

Even in real time, Sundqvist's direction change wasn't that abrupt. Wilson had plenty of time and space. And it doesn't even really matter because Wilson was committed to the hit one way or the other. He intended to hit high. Did he intend to hit Sundqvist in the head? Who knows but him? But that's pretty irrelevant because this isn't the first time he's done this shit. He's a danger to the other players in this league and he needs to be sent a message. This continuing focus on Sundqvist is so far beyond the point and is the kind of mentality that is making progress on curtailing concussions slow.

 

[HanSolo]

I know when players suddenly change position I was always taught to explode upwardly at their head.

Yeah my coach always told me I should aim high and hit like I'm trying to decapitate people.

 

[Ms Maggie]

Is there a reason you use only US stats?

International stats not reliable, esp auto stats.

But the point remains, air travel whether measured by miles or hours or enplanements is by far safer than automobile travel.

Feel free to provide data to the contrary.

 

[The Nuge]

I know when players suddenly change position I was always taught to explode upwardly at their head.

Which is why he should probably get a couple games. It’s just not a 20+ game suspension to me.

Even in real time, Sundqvist's direction change wasn't that abrupt. Wilson had plenty of time and space. And it doesn't even really matter because Wilson was committed to the hit one way or the other. He intended to hit high. Did he intend to hit Sundqvist in the head? Who knows but him? But that's pretty irrelevant because this isn't the first time he's done this ****. He's a danger to the other players in this league and he needs to be sent a message. This continuing focus on Sundqvist is so far beyond the point and is the kind of mentality that is making progress on curtailing concussions slow.

He skated into a dangerous area, and turned away from where he was skating. It doesn’t excuse Wilson hitting him high, but his actions still made the hit a lot worse than it would have been if he noticed the guy skating at him. At that point, he should have been trying to avoid the hit, not throw a weak wrister towards the net. With what he did, he was going to get absolutely blown up, even if Wilson made a perfectly clean hit. It’s not a blindside hit. It’s just a high hit

 

[TeeTee]

I think the problem with this discussion is that many here never played a physical sport like hockey and football.

Blindside hits are readily available on nearly every play in football and every shift in hockey. For those who claim "keep your head up", you haven't played.

The reason there aren't more of these hits is that most reasonable people understand the danger you are putting your opponent in and simply choose avoiding the contact. But every once in a while, a player comes along that doesn't play by humane rules. In a pick up game, Wilson most likely would be attacked by the opposing team for delivering this type of hit (I have even seen own teammates go after players for this type of behavior).

It's a sucker punch, delivered with a shoulder rather than a fist. What I'm really surprised by is that no victim of Wilson or Cooke ever went after them with even a dirtier play. I had this type of hit delivered to me once and I snapped emotionally and tried to decapitate my opponent with a vicious cross check to the back of his neck. The way I looked at it, he could have killed me, I'm returning the objective.

I am always amazed that there are not more players that react like you reacted. I would have done the same, if not worse. They have amazing self control.

 

[shtorm2005]

International stats not reliable, esp auto stats.

But the point remains, air travel whether measured by miles or enplanements is by far safer than automobile travel.

Feel free to provide data to the contrary.

So, with unreliable worldwide data, will u feel safer than in a car outside of US?

Anyhow, I don't want to argue about that. My example was just to show u that frequency matters. Like someone's better shooting % doesn't make him better shooter than Ovy. Same with Wilson's amount of hits, some will be dirty because he hits often and skates fast. Notice, I said dirty, therefore, suspensions are justified.

 

[Phil Kessels Hot Dog]

16 games will cost him $1mil in salary, seems like a good place to start. Then maybe he'll get the hint.

 

[Ms Maggie]

So, with unreliable worldwide data, will u feel safer than in a car outside of US?

Anyhow, I don't want to argue about that. My example was just to show u that frequency matters. Like if someone's better shooting % doesn't make him better shooter than Ovy. Same with Wilson amount of hits, some of the will be dirty because he hits often and skates fast. Notice, I said dirty, therefore, suspensions are justified.

The relevant set for comparison would be other players playing similar position and ice time. It's his choice to hit often and hit dirty. Getting old.

 

[volcom92886]

10-15 based on history

 

[Riptide]

I think the problem with this discussion is that many here never played a physical sport like hockey and football.

Blindside hits are readily available on nearly every play in football and every shift in hockey. For those who claim "keep your head up", you haven't played.

The reason there aren't more of these hits is that most reasonable people understand the danger you are putting your opponent in and simply choose avoiding the contact. But every once in a while, a player comes along that doesn't play by humane rules. In a pick up game, Wilson most likely would be attacked by the opposing team for delivering this type of hit (I have even seen own teammates go after players for this type of behavior).

Yes and no. I think that one of the reasons there are not a ton of these hits, is there's not a ton of players in the game today who are great hitters. Add in the speed of today's game, and guys like Sestito or Laraque are not effective players. Not only because they're bad at hockey, but because they don't have the speed that someone like Wilson or Watson or Kunitz or Cooke (circa 9 years ago) have that allow them to get into positions to hit people. So now you have less players overall on teams who will absolutely destroy you... which leads to less hitting overall.

The stats seem to support this. 2014/15 is the peak with 37 forwards at 2.5 hits per game and 71 at 2.0 per game, and it's been going down ever since. The past two season are pretty similar although are still declining, with ~20 forwards at 2.5 and ~50 at 2.0.

Basically the faster the game gets, the less hitting there is as there's fewer players overall who have the wheels and ability to hit and play in the NHL.

It's a sucker punch, delivered with a shoulder rather than a fist. What I'm really surprised by is that no victim of Wilson or Cooke ever went after them with even a dirtier play. I had this type of hit delivered to me once and I snapped emotionally and tried to decapitate my opponent with a vicious cross check to the back of his neck. The way I looked at it, he could have killed me, I'm returning the objective.

There's probably multiple reasons for that. Here's some of them:
- Means and/or ability. For example, what was Marc Savard (assuming he ever played again) going to do to Matt Cooke? About the only thing he could do was run him from behind or something. And lets say he did...
- Where does it stop? Lets say that Savard (we'll pick on him and Cooke because neither are playing today) did run Cooke from behind... Is that really the "message you want to send"? And if so, what's stopping someone else from returning the favor?
- Does the team/Savard actually benefit? I mean if Savard did do that to Cooke and then received a 10 game suspension, his team lost the game due to the PP the Penguins received, and Savard was fined around 500-700k for the act... is that actually a good thing for either party? He also likely would have pissed off his teammates for being so selfish. I mean sure Savard would have received some retribution... but it's not like it didn't cost him and his team as well.

Now keep in mind that Wilson is 6-4 and 220 vs 6-1 (or whatever Cooke was), and it changes things even more. I mean what's Sheary for example going to do when Wilson takes a run and knee's him?

 

[Riptide]

He should be allowed to play in the game devoted to the cup raising banner. Ban him for a game or 2 after that one

f*** that. That's exactly the type of game he shouldn't even be allowed in the arena for.

 

[Eyeseeing]

The fact there are multiple examples of his hits on HF with suspensions and without would lead one to believe he plays over the line.
He’s not a terrible player just an idiot when it comes to checks.
NHLPA has no credibility when they appeal decisions made by DOPS
The same NHLPA then blames the NHL for concussions pretty much a joke in itself

 

[Riptide]

16 games will cost him $1mil in salary, seems like a good place to start. Then maybe he'll get the hint.

16 games will cost him more than that. He makes 6.1m this season, so 13/14 games is around the 1m mark. 16 would be ~1.19m.