41.1 Boarding – A boarding penalty shall be imposed on any player […] who checks or pushes a defenseless opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to hit or impact the boards violently in the boards. The severity of the penalty, based upon the impact with the boards, shall be at the discretion of the Referee.
[…] The onus is on the player applying the check to ensure his opponent is not in a defenseless position and if so, he must avoid or minimize the contact. However, in determining wheter [sic] such contact could have been avoided, the circumstances of the check, including whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to or simultaneously with the check or whether the check was unavoidable can be considered. […]
If deemed appropriate, supplementary discipline can be applied by the Commissioner at his discretion […].
It doesn’t matter if he didn’t target the head. It’s the impact with the boards that is the issue. Brendan Morrow should have been tossed. There should have been a 1 minute Kings major power-play (off-setting the 4 minute minor on Mike Richards). There should have been no Stars power-play goal, because there should have been no power play. As it stands, Brendan Shanahan ought to (but won’t) suspend Morrow.
So, consider the above the first of my post-game bullets. Here are the others:
- How they didn’t call the trip/hook which pulled Drew Doughty down and led directly to the Stars’ third goal is beyond me. It’s not like there’s only one ref.
- Why is Sheldon Souray punching Justin Williams
on Colin Fraser’s game-winning OT goal? - I hope Doughty and Jack Johnson continue to play like they did last night.
- I won’t believe Kopitar isn’t concussed until at least a week from now.
- And it might be a good idea to keep Sidney Crosby in mind. It wasn’t the first hit that ruined two years of his career; it was the second one, a week later. You know, when Crosby was “fine.”