Disgusting.

Deplorable.

Dysfunctional. Defective. Demented.

Pick your damned adjective. They all apply to this one.

The NHL has informed the Penguins that Matt Cooke will not be suspended by the league for his elbow to the head of the Bruins’ Marc Savard last Sunday in Pittsburgh. Savard, pictured above being carted off the ice on a stretcher, suffered a grade 2 concussion and could possibly miss the rest of the season as a result.

Thanks to the NHL and it’s watery brained upper management personnel, Matt Cooke is free to continue maiming whoever he wants on any and all NHL ice surfaces. In fact, it’s Wabbit Season now when it comes to all league stars. You hear that Tom Kostopoulos? Feel free to bring a shotgun to the rink tonight and blow the fucking beak right off of Alex Ovechkin’s face because as far as Colin Campbell is concerned, it’s all good.

Seriously, folks, this is as looney tunes as it gets.

What does a guy like Cooke, a repeat offender with a serious record of dangerous behavior, have to do to get the NHL to reprimand his actions and calm his reckless behavior down? Kill someone? I mean, let’s be honest, he almost did on Sunday.

A five game suspension? Nope. A two game suspension (like all his others)? Nyet. One game? Nuh-uh. Not a sausage.

Astonishing ignorance by Campbell, Bettman and their NHL cronies considering the fact that they’re all down in Boca Raton right now for the GM Meetings during which mandating tougher penalties against head injuries is at the very top of their agenda.

You can’t make shit like this up, people. This is the NHL. I’m not sure they’ve even found John Ziegler yet.

The end result of this, for the Boston Bruins, oddly enough could be very good or very bad. Good because they now have their chance, Thursday the 18th in Boston when the Pens come to town, to exact their own measure of justice on Matt Cooke for what he did. Sure, it’s a week and a half late but you know damn well that will be what happens. Old school, frontier justice.

The bad could be if it gets out of control like it very well could and the team gets heavily penalized, fined, suspended. The pressure and the hype surrounding the game will be psychotic. You have to understand the atmosphere here right now. Fans and media are frothing about this issue and they want blood. The team is being called on the carpet for lack of courage, for total gutlessness, and there’s no doubt they’ll hear it before the Pens game like they never have before. Something very, very ugly could indeed happen that night.

And it will be the NHL’s fault, really. You won’t reprimand this guy, you won’t take control of your game and, in fact, via the instigator rule, won’t allow guys to police themselves like has been done in the past, you set up what’s going to happen next Thursday. It’s has the potential to go completely MMA out there.

Nice job, guys. Really.

Do yourself a favor and stock a few extra stretchers for that game.

You might need ‘em.

There’s a sign (pictured above) that’s been hanging on the exterior of the TD Garden in Boston all season that reads “Big and Bad are Back”. It’s an ad trying to capitalize on the buzz created last season by the Bruins success and, perhaps more so, the image they created as a close knit, old school type of team that stood up for each other on the ice, ready and willing to scrap at a moment’s notice whenever it was needed.

There has been a lot of talk lately about how that has changed this season and a lot of head scratching by folks trying to figure out why. The key example being, of course, the fact that no one on the team retaliated againt Matt Cooke on Sunday when he blindsided the team’s best player, Marc Savard, and knocked him cold. Besides a bit of squawking and pushing, no one did a thing. As Savard was carted away on a stretcher Matt Cooke stood idly by chatting with a linesman.

This hasn’t been sitting too well with folks around here.

Stanley Cup of Chowder asked “Where was the reaction?” Doug Flynn puts the entire team in his Sin Bin, citing exactly which players were on the ice when Savard was clocked and then which were out there when Cooke took his next shift after the incident. In contrast, Matt Kalman approves of the B’s “measured response” but he remains in the minority.

Mike Felger and Tony Massaroti led a scathing, ranting discussion on 98.5 the Sports Hub yesterday questioning the team’s unity and courage, pointing out that this sort of thing wouldn’t have happened last season. They had on ever quotable B’s play by play guy Jack Edwards who, while admitting he wished the B’s had reacted, blamed the NHL and the instigator rule for creating an atmosphere where hits like this can happen more frequently. Of course, he also called for the Bruins to target Sidney Crosby as a response, saying “You’ve got to take nine teeth out of Crosby’s face!”

A lot of people referenced the Dallas game last season when the team gained some serious momentum by standing up to chippy tactics by Matt Cooke Award runners up Steve Ott and Sean Avery.

Let’s replay that, actually, for a reminder. Do yourself a favor and watch this all the way through if you haven’t seen it in a while.

What a great game. What a great, fucking game. Set the tone for an entire season, I think. And did you see who was leading the charge, there? Who it was that jumped in on Sean Avery when he boarded Milan Lucic and sparked that brawl?

Marc Savard.

I wonder, now, if he feels a little betrayed by some of those same players he was sticking up for right there.

So what has changed?

I wish I could answer that question for you but it befuddles me as much as anyone. Only one player highlighted in that Dallas game is missing from the 2009-10 version of the Bruins and that’s Shane Hnidy. Granted, he’s a tough, character guy and he’d step up for anyone but you can’t tell me Shane Hnidy’s absence has made that much difference from this team attitude on the ice and, more importantly, their locker room composition. Because the rumblings are, that’s where this problem stems from. We hear the words “divided locker room” here and there these days and I’m just not sure why that would be the case.

Character players of note missing this year are veterans P.J. Axelsson, Aaron Ward, Shane Hnidy, Steve Montador and Stephane Yelle (you can’t count Phil Kessel in a discussion like this). Chuck Kobasew, another spitfire type player, is also gone, traded to the Wild. In to replace those guys are Steve Begin, Daniel Paille, Dennis Seidenberg and Miroslav Satan.

Has this changed team composition so dramatically? Maybe. There’s a lot of collective experience and heart in those players who’ve departed and the one’s who come in haven’t quite shown as much, I don’t think.

Or has it come, as some suspect, from the coaching staff? Is Claude Julien holding his guys back in this department or, more passively, are they adopting his less than agressive personality. When Shawn Thornton declines a fight on the road, does that come from the Head Coach? Did it all start when he wouldn’t let Milan Lucic take on Georges Laraque and we had that whole embarrassing incident where BGL shadowed Looch around the ice for a game? Did things like that, as some suggest, snip the balls off the Bruins?

Julien’s whole “let the league handle it” attitude toward the Cooke hit on Savard is making a lot of people question his and this team’s approach to the game and whether it’s tough enough as people around here want and need. It’s clear Don Cherry thinks that’s the case based on his ranting comments about the Bruins last Thursday when the Leafs were in Boston. Though he was wrong about the Lucic Orr fight, was he right about the Bruins in general? Certainly this current Bruins team bears little resemblance to the lunch pail crew that he coached back in the late 70’s, the Big Bad Bruins.

As much as the advertising people down at the Garden would like to tell us so, they are not, in fact, back. Quite the opposite, based on Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh and the Matt Cooke fiasco. They seem to be missing in action.

Can they turn that around? I don’t know. I’m sure they are aware of the conversation by now and the disappointment of fans and media here in Boston. Tonight, in Toronto, will be their first chance to respond on the ice and, one would think, it could get interesting. Shawn Thornton might have something to say to Colton Orr. I hear Jay Rosehill has been called up and we know how willing he can be. Next Thursday, depending on suspensions (who knows what Colin Campbell will do when he ridiculously insists Cooke’s hit was shoulder…) they’ll have a chance for redemption against Pittsburgh.

Will it be too little too late?

The Bruins, by the way, have called up Jeff Penner from Providence for the game when big, bruising and willing-to-go Adam McQuaid was readily available which suggests to me that nothing here is about to change anytime soon.

Terry O’Reilly isn’t walking through that door, people.

And that’s a little sad.

Ironically, a hot topic of those very same meetings is the NHL’s stance on blows to the head.

How timely.

“I value what [my teammates] have to say. When it comes from a guy like [Cherry] I don’t have to listen to it too much,” Lucic said to CSNNE.com after scoring Boston’s first goal in a 3-2 win over the Islanders Saturday afternoon. “Halfway through the fight, [Orr] got me with a pretty good shot and ended up breaking my nose.”

“If I was going to quit like Don Cherry was saying, then I’m pretty sure I would have gone down to the ice and wouldn’t have come back into the game. I don’t know what he’s talking about with quitting. I think he needs to re-analyze things before he makes comments like that.”

“I don’t focus on what he has to say. As a player you really don’t want to focus on the negative,” said Lucic. “Everybody has got their opinion and you don’t have to value their opinion. Obviously I care more about what my teammates say after a fight like that.”

One thing wrong that statement, kiddo. To say that Cherry should re-analyze things is to suggest that he actually analyzed them in the first place. Obviously not the case.

His nose was broken. He never went down. He was still on his feet and willing to engage throughout. He never called in the linesmen or hid behind them.

He never quit.

‘Nuff said.

Matt Cooke: Out To End Your Career

When I really started hunting around for Matt Cooke’s previous cheap shot incidents, I couldn’t believe how many I found. So many, I decided to give him his own page of infamy to try to organize and catalog the various atrocities. I gave it an appropriate name.

The Matt Cooke, You Dirty Fucker Page

On which you will find the following.

Still looking for video on his blow to the head of Carolina’s Scott Walker in January of 2009 and his spearing of the Wild’s Matt Johnson in 2004.

Can anyone see a trend developing? Of course, the end result of all this reckless endangerment and deliberate attempts to injure? 6 games in suspensions.

Six games over a 6 year period.

So my question is simple. Here is a guy who has shown repeated, systematic disrespect for his fellow players in the NHL. A guy, out of mindless stupidity or deliberate viciousness, who seems to be out there trying to end people’s careers.

What are you going to do about it, NHL?

The replay clearly showed Cooke delivering the offending blow with intent.

It’s not his first offense in this area, either. Just last November 28th Cooke did exactly the same thing to Artem Anisimov of the Rangers and got two games. In January of ‘09 he hit the ‘Canes Scott Walker in the head and got a 2-game suspension, as well. In 2004, then with the Canucks, he was given two games for spearing Wild’s Matt Johnson. Then there was the knee-on-knee incident that injured Carolina’s Erik Cole last May that went unpunished. Quite a record the guy is building up, don’t you think?

All two game suspensions.

Again, the matter falls to the NHL and it’s stance on discipline. This is a repeat offender who has, up to this point, gotten little more than a slap on the wrist for his actions.

The result, now? He’s taken out one of the game’s stars, a player who’s a key component to his team’s playoff chances, and possibly put the man’s season and, in the case of post-concussion issues, career at risk.

Pretty unforgivable. We’re talking about a multiple offender here, someone who just hasn’t learned to respect his opponents and the game he plays. A dangerous person to have on the ice if he can’t control himself like that. Something serious is going to have to happen in terms of discipline and one would think the Bruins (and HGW for sure) will be spearheading the cause to have the Hammer of Justice come down on Cooke’s head.

Just like his elbow did on Savard’s.

Video now available.

More soon; opinion, reaction from the Bruins and others and a report of Savard’s condition. It doesn’t look good. Stay tuned.

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Update: Savard definately has a concussion.

Claude Julien:

“That was probably the classic blindside hit to the head, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to get rid of,” said a visibly angry B’s coach Claude Julien. “A guy like that has to be suspended. We have a player who has a concussion, who’s our best player, and he’s going to be out for a while.”

Milan Lucic Sporting His New Face Shield

Which would suggest he had his nose broken in that fight with Colton Orr the other night. Would that maybe make you reconsider your idiotic comments? Maybe feel a little guilty about ripping the kid like that?

Probably not.

Bruins up early on the Island, 1-0 on a goal by…

Milan Lucic.

Way to show ‘em, kid.

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Bruins now up 3-1 on goals by David Krejci and Marc Savard but Michael Ryder has just been ejected from the game and given a 5 minute major for a hit from behind on Blake Comeau. It wasn’t vicious but Ryder did drive him into the boards when Comeau was in a vulnerable position and more, seemed to take a peek a who it was, maybe noting how Comeau had been throwing his body around quite a bit earlier in the game.

Bruins in the process of killing it off as the second period comes to an end.

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Final on Long Island, Bruins win 3-2. Not an awe-inspiring performance but certainly a good little road win and two points the B’s need to stay in the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Dennis Seidenberg is a better defenseman than I had realized, I must be honest. He does indeed compliment Zdeno Chara’s play more than other’s he’s been paired with. His play, and the seeming resurgence of Miroslav Satan have boosted the team in the last two games for certain. If it can continue, and others start to catch the fever, perhaps there’s hope here aftr all.

Best not to get too excited just yet.

Derek Boogaard: On-Ice Criminal?

Derek Boogaard grabbed the spotlight last night for this dangerous knee-on-knee hit on Edmonton’s Ryan Jones. It’s sparked a little debate about goonism and the NHL’s stance on discipline when it comes to actions like these. David Staples in the Edmonton Journal suggests “Boogie” has gotten off light in other instances of “illegal, on-ice violence” citing incidents in which he hurt Brandon Prust and Ales Hemsky.

Granted, Staples is writing from an Edmonton perspective and seems to take offenses against the Oilers and their Alberta brethren quite personally but there’s also something to be said about the dangerous nature of what Boogaard does. He’s so huge, so powerful and so feared it’s almost like he has a license to anything he wants out there. He could have easily ended Jones‘ career with that hit and it looked quite deliberate and quite illegal.

You notice, however, that not a single Oiler steps up to challenge Boogaard after that, something that might happen in an instant if it was any other player. But guys need to think twice because Boogaard can kill people with his hands.

It begs a question that I’ll need to talk about in depth at some point. Have NHL enforcers become too big and strong for their own good? Orr, Boogaard. These are people with dangerous hands.

Meanwhile, the NHL needs to step in with a little discipline here, I think.

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Update: Suspension has come down. Two games, which is not going to make folks complaining that Boogaard gets off light very happy. Of course, if Jones’ injury had been worse, you know he’d have gotten more games. That’s the most absurd aspect of NHL discipline, they punish the end result, not the intent. You could argue it doesn’t matter whether or not Jones got knocked out for the season just that he easily could have.

And for that, Boogaard deserves more.

You can see at the end of the slow-mo that Lucic does say a quick something but he’s not talking to the linesman, he’s talking to Orr. Who know’s what it might be (can we get a professional lip reader in here?) but I don’t think its calling in the linesmen.

I implore you folks who want to rip on Lucic for this to watch that video in slow motion and ask yourself if you would have hung in there with Orr at the end of that after taking those sorts of shots. I mean, how much is enough?

Thanks to dafoomie for that video. Brilliant work.

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For those who want the international view, TSN’s coverage of the game offers the fight from a different angle. They also note that, after the fight, Lucic skates off to the Bruins locker room for some repairs.

Take a gander.

Cherry’s rant (I have audio on it thanks to my man Gonz but no video yet) had two distinct targets. First Shawn Thornton taking on a “non-fighter” in Primeau which, according to Grapes, he did because he was embarrassed about the way Lucic handled himself in the fight with Orr. Secondly, his impression that Lucic quit in the fight. Here’s some transcription for you that addresses both.

Cherry on Thornton vs. Primeau:

Why would Thornton drop the gloves with a guy that doesn’t even fight in Wayne Primeau? He doesn’t fight at all, he’s just a player, not bad, and your best fighter drops ‘em. Why? I’m going to tell you why. Because Thornton right after was embarrassed of this fight comin’ up.

Cherry on Lucic vs. Orr:

Now Lucic, he’s a good hockey player but if you’re gonna fight you don’t quit. He’s talking to the linesman to come on in. You don’t talk to linesman to come on in. You go out on your shield. Look he’s backin’ up, he wants to go again. If you’re gonna fight… He’s hiding behind the linesman. That’s a disgrace to the Boston Bruins as far as I’m concerned.

First off, Don, it’s pronounced “looch-ich”. Not “loose-ick”. Just so you know. But that sort of ignorance is neither here nor there.

Let’s get to the meat of the thing. I’ve watched the fight repeatedly. I’m not going to be a homer about this, either. People will attest to my disappointment with Milan Lucic this year in this very arena. With his lack of snarl, his lack of inspirational play, his lack of fighting of late. I admit love Milan Lucic’s game when he’s on but I’m no sycophantic fanboy. We strive to tell it like it is here at HGW.

Lucic challenges Orr. That much seems clear to me. He goes looking for it against one of the most feared punchers in the game and for that I give him credit. They trade some heavy shots at first then Looch starts getting tagged. Gets one right on the beak that stuns him and he starts leaking. Starts taking a lot more and is in obvious pain and starts to tie up a bit. During the struggle they separate awkwardly and you can see Lucic is still willing if necessary but has had his share, really, and needs a few repairs. Fight over. Looch loses but it’s a pretty good heavyweight bout.

Not once did I see him calling the linesmen to come in.

Not once did I see him hiding behind the linesmen.

If he quit at all it was because he’d been hurt in the fight and had enough. Watch a few more Lucic fights and you’ll see guys on the other side of things doing exactly that, as well. Sometimes, you have to know when the fight is over if you want to live to fight another day. No shame in it.

Not according to Don, though. He thought is was a “disgrace”. An overreaction by Cherry, for sure, a stupid statement, perhaps. Certainly a misjudgement of what happened on the ice, I think. Looch stood tall tonight an played one of his best, most impactful games of the season and challenging Orr was part of it. Respect for stepping up, kid.

On the Thornton thing, well, Grapes is wrong again I do believe. First calling Primeau a non-fighter is flat out inaccurate. He’s had his share of scraps as we here in Boston know well from his time here. He’s got a bit of jam to his game and isn’t too shy. At 6-4 230 he’s bigger than Thornton. 39 career fights in total with opponents like Adam Mair, Steve Montador, Luke Richardson, Chris Simon and, the most famous, his brother Keith. Hardly a Lady Byng candidate folks.

Does this look like the stance of a non-fighter to you?

Thornton wasn’t going with him because he was “embarrassed”. He knows damn well Lucic can take care of himself but he also knows that the job of taking on Colton Orr should be his. I think he felt left out and resented Orr for going with Lucic instead of him. I’ve seen them chatting on the ice in other B’s Leafs games when Orr would get rough with guys and I have no doubt the theme of the conversation was something like, “Listen, Colton. If you want someone in this game, that someone is me. I’m your huckleberry.”

So Thornton saw Looch lose to Orr, knowing it should have been him in that scrap and wanted to do his job, whichis to swing momentum the Bruins way. Looks like he challenged the next obvious candidate on the ice for Toronto on the ensuing face-off and Primeau was willing. Looks like he even positioned himself at the center spot to do so. I kind of like that sort of moxie. And I like Wayne Primeau for saying “yes”.

All part of the code and the game we love. No harm, no foul.

There was a lot more to Cherry’s rant about the Bruins lack of hitting that was more lucid, at one point saying to Julien, “Claude, If you can’t get ‘em to score, at least get him to hit.” That stuff was fine, he was talking about the B’s getting blown out by Montreal and the fact that they needed some snarl against Toronto which, I think, they did show before it was done. Managed to win the game in a shoot-out, too.

The stuff about Lucic and Thornton is off base, though, and a bit shrill. I understand you thought your old team wasn’t playing by the code but you need to know that these are two guys who know and play by the code more than anyone I’ve seen in a long, long time. If you’d have calmed down, looked at the video more closely and thought about it, you would have realized you went a bit overboard.

But, hey. That’s what Don Cherry does, right? Whether it’s his mouth or his clothes.

They’re both loud.