Cooke
It came at least a year too late, especially for Bruins center Marc Savard, but today the NHL finally came down hard on Pittsburgh agitator Matt Cooke.
The veteran forward and serial purveyor of questionable hits was suspended for the remainder of the regular season and playoffs by NHL discipline czar Colin Campbell for the Penguins player’s elbow to the head of New York’s Ryan McDonagh Sunday.
Campbell cited Cooke’s repeat-offender status for the harshness of the suspension. Most recently, the NHL doled out two-game suspensions to Boston’s Brad Marchand and San Jose’s Dany Heatley for similar plays. But neither player had any prior incidents.
This means that should the Bruins somehow draw the Penguins in the first round, they won’t have to worry about Cooke. In games this season with Pittsburgh, numerous Boston players, especially Johnny Boychuk, have gone out of their way to make contact with the man who might have cut short Savard’s career with a blindside hit to the head last March.
The suspension also sends a message that the league is really going to get serious about shots to the head and that multi-time offenders — a group Marchand will be a part of if he targets the head again — are on notice. Losing a player for 10 games and a round of playoffs is huge. So as Bruins coach Claude Julien said today, coaching staffs have to help players work through their issues and make sure they play the right way.
But also the players have to make a concerted effort now to avoid contact with the head, or they’ll be facing more severe consequences.
Good take Matt K and very true Karl too late to prevent all those knee to knees that could have been prevented.
Now imagine if this elbow happened last year, and he had hit Savard this year how long that suspension would be.
good reason to root against pitt during the 1st round. collie, your timing is the same as the libyan no fly zone. a day late and a dollar short.
Lol at the photo selection. It looks like it was taken while he was pounding natty ice in his backyard sitting in a busted up old beach chair
I think this is a pretty fair ruling for once-and I like the fact that the suspension carries over to where the loss of the player may hurt the most-the play offs.
I think the team leadership at the team level really needs to address this issue and the players themselves just have to make a concerted effort to keep their games clean.
I won’t be missing Cooke at all, and the sad thing with Cooke is that he isn’t a bad hockey player when he keeps his game clean-but he doesn’t seem to want to keep his game clean and that makes him dangerous.