[Kevin Kurtz] When asked by @JHallNBCS about whether there was further clarification from the league about the Hathaway hit last night, John Tortorella used it as an opportunity to give his thoughts on the state of hitting in today’s game. Interesting stuff, whether you agree or disagree.
by Perryplat199
5 Comments
[Link to tweet](https://twitter.com/kkurznhl/status/1730656610576470089?s=46&t=HnlZXn-hftTl9f8rW_6qVA)
He’s not wrong
Agreed – the play should never have happened in the first place. That said, Hathaway was just playing to the whistle. Hughes probably should have played to the whistle too, but he had no reason to think it would get to that point without a whistle.
Linesman’s fault it happened, referee’s fault it got the penalty it did
Boarding, which this check obviously was, is not one of the “new rules” he wants to complain about. Its probably not a major, but its a penalty. It’s also a stretch to say Luke Hughes doesn’t know how to take a hit because of this perfect storm situation that the officials botched.
On the broader point though, that they’re “trying to turn this into a no-hit league”…good.
Let’s just take out the icing/no-ice thing for a second because that was an obvious officiating fuck up. What happens on this play is that Hathaway skates hard to create a 50/50 puck and then, instead of making any attempt to win that puck, takes his stick off the ice and blows a guy up without a care in the world where the puck goes. That type of hit *should* be removed from the game. Checking is supposed to be a physical way to separate the carrier from the puck, end an opposing possession, and create the opportunity to win a loose puck. “Sending messages” and “policing the game” is actually just turning players’ brains into pudding for entertainment, and if John Tortorella doesn’t like that the game is moving that way, well I hope the game leaves him behind.
They were late blowing the whistle on TWO icing calls last night. The common denominator here isn’t an aggressive team trying to get in some illegal hits or whatever, but a linesman/ref who for whatever reason wasn’t whistling soon enough. I agree with Boucher – I’d rather see a questionable whistle blown early, than what we saw last night.
Also it didn’t really look like boarding to me.
The league went to hybrid icing in 2013 after Joni Pitkänen got plowed. I hope the refs/linesman have a talk about this.
I’m glad Luke Hughes is okay.