Yanni Gourde of the Seattle Kraken was called for boarding against Uhro Vaakanainen of the Boston Bruins. It was originally called as a five minute major penalty but upon review was reduced to a minor penalty. To me that shows the NHL has a long way to go in terms of player protection.
@Anaheim Ducks
2 Comments
Great break down. I was at the game, and both refs had their arms down. When Taylor Hall hit MacKinnon both arms were raised on that. Both hits were eventually called 5 minute majors and reduced to minors on review. The thought process was that they couldn't rescind the Hall penalty completely, though it looked clean on review. I bet the refs thought this looked pretty clean on review, too. This is the 3rd time in the last couple of weeks Bruins players have been hit in the numbers with no initial call at all or a call from a trailing official when armbands on top of the play just sees a good hockey hit because it's the Bruins. Awful.
The worst part of the entire hit is that there was no penalty called initially. You can see the ref in the corner with his hand down. I have no idea how he could watch that hit and not see a penalty. It’s ridiculous. Then after they get together they call it correctly as a 5-min boarding penalty and then after watching all these replays they reduce it?! WTF. Gourde hit him from behind so hard that it actually broke his visor and cut his face. Vaakanianen still has not returned to play and yet Gourde simply had to sit for 2 minutes. I’m with Tough Call on this. That should’ve been 5 mins and a suspension. That is the definition of boarding and it resulted in an injury. If that’s not a major penalty then what is?! Gourde was watching his numbers the entire time and never once did he attempt to play the puck. He did exactly what he lining up to do which was to crush Vaakanainen no matter what. I used to applaud NHL refs cause I thought they were the best refs in all of sports but these last 5 or 10 years they have been horrible. Them thinking that this wasn’t even a penalty initially is the perfect example of bad NHL officiating has become. Again it’s February 13th and Vaakanainen still hasn’t return from this hit. Think about that