I know a lot of you will have strong reaction to this news. But the NHL has suspended Caps defenseman Mike Green three games for his elbow on Florida forward Michael Frolik and so he loses out on $81,606.21 in pay. Green was hit with a two-minute penalty on the play, but a Comcast SportsNet replay angle that aired on Canadian television netowrk TSN – a behind-the-play shot – showed a pretty clear elbow. Caps coach Bruce Boudreau didn’t agree with the decision. At all. But he also choose his words carefully.
“I don’t know how to react anymore. Obviously, I’m very upset about it,” Boudreau said. “But what can you do – it’s like if you get a ticket and you know you’re not doing something wrong from the police you can’t argue with them. So you sit there and you take it. But I don’t know. I better not say nothing. I’m just livid about the whole thing anyway.”
Green was even more tight-lipped. He didn’t think the hit deserved a two-minute penalty, either, and absolutely denied that it was in retaliation for an earlier hit from Florida forward Cory Stillman. But there wasn’t much else Green wanted to say – or more likely was allowed to say. He acknowledged that the suspension would at least give him a few days to get over “bumps and bruises”, including the charley horse from a hit by Florida defenseman Dmitry Kulikov that knocked Green out of the game on Friday.
“Yeah. I never want to sit out period,” Green said. “Even if you get bumps and bruises and injuries you don’t want to sit out. You want to play. It’s unfortunate right now. We’re on a good roll and I’m not being a part of it. But I’ll have faith that the guys will get [it] done.”
Reaction from’s Green’s teammates was mixed. Defenseman Jeff Schultz was shocked at the length of the suspension for a player with no track record with the league office. Then again – forward Brooks Laich, Green’s good friend, said he at least understood the league’s position – although noting that Green doesn’t have a track record.
“Obviously we don’t want to lose Greenie. I don’t know if he was going play anyway after that knee-on-knee collision. But at some point you have to take control of the game and protect the players. You see what happened in junior hockey [the recent Patrice Cormier incident in the QMJHL]. At some point you have to make a statement where there’s not a gray area. You can’t hit to the head. It’s black or white. You hit to the head you’re going to get suspended. We don’t want to lose Greenie, but at the same time I think it’s important that our league enforces punishment for hits to the head.”
Laich went on to discuss – in more general terms and not necessarily about Green’s specific incident – what happens during a game when a player takes what he feels in an unacceptable hit and reacts emotionally.
“Nobody likes to get run. It’s embarrassing when someone puts you on your seat,” Laich said. “So then the emotions kind of get going and you look for someone that’s maybe in a vulnerable position to take out you frustration. I’m guilty of it, and every other player in the league is guilty of it. But you also have to be careful that you don’t permanently injure that player or do something to injure them.”
