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By Chris Kober
Hockeytalk.biz

MARCH 11, 2010 -- The NHL’s 30 general managers convened this week in Boca Raton, Florida, for their annual March meetings and emerged with a recommended rule change concerning hits to the head, one of the most compelling issues facing the league this season. 

Marc Savard Boston Bruins

After a presentation regarding the evolution of the game and the role of hitting in the NHL on Monday and a subcommittee meeting on hits to the head and blindside hits on Tuesday, all 30 GM’s unanimously agreed to propose a rule change for next season with the following language:

"A lateral, back pressure or blindside hit to an opponent where the head is targeted and/or the principal point of contact is not permitted. A violation of the above will result in a minor or major penalty and shall be reviewed for possible supplemental discipline."

Before going into effect next season, the rule must first be approved by the NHL and NHL Players Association competition committee.  The committee is composed of five current players, four general managers and one team owner.  If approved by the competition committee the proposal will then go to the league’s Board of Governors for final approval. 

While the issue of hits to the head has been discussed reaching back as far as 1997, the matter has come into sharper focus this season following Mike Richards’ Oct. 24 hit on David Booth of the Florida Panthers that kept the latter out of the lineup for 45 games.

David Booth Florida Panthers

There was no penalty called on the play and no supplementary discipline was handed down to Richards.  The reasoning for the decision not to suspend Richards was explained by the NHL’s vice-president of hockey operations Mike Murphy.

“Richards did not target the head, he did not leave his feet, he did not hit an unsuspecting player, he's not a repeat offender, and he did not hit [Booth] late,” Murphy said in a written statement read on the NHL Network in October.

Hours before the meetings began, Boston Bruins center Marc Savard was carried off on a stretcher as a result of a similar open-ice hit by Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke.  Savard may miss the rest of the Bruins’ season after being diagnosed with a grade two concussion on Monday.

Hours after the meetings concluded, the league announced that, like Richards, Cooke will not be suspended for his hit, despite the fact that Cooke is what the league refers to as a repeat offender, having been suspended twice in the past year. 

According to Colin Campbell, the NHL’s president of hockey operations, his suspension history is not enough to distinguish Sunday’s hit from the Richards incident.

Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli lobbied for Cooke to be suspended during the three days of meetings on the grounds that the hit came from outside of Savard’s peripheral vision.  Chiarelli pointed out that Cooke could have been given a match penalty for intent to injure, and believes that his repeat offender status warranted discipline. 

Chiarelli told the press during a Wednesday evening conference call that Campbell considered the Cooke and Richards hits nearly identical, but that Campbell disagreed with the GM that there was any intent to injure; therefore there was no infraction on which to base a suspension for Cooke in Campbell’s view.

“I can’t suspend Matt Cooke for being a repeat offender,” Campbell said. “I have to find a reason and right now our rules say that shoulders to head are legal. We feel that we have to be consistent and do what we think is right.  Hopefully we’ve gone to a place in our meetings today that we can eradicate plays like this in the future.”

Therein lies the irony of the situation:  By recommending a new rule, the league makes a huge statement that blindside head shots will not be tolerated in the future, and almost immediately tells the players that these types of hits are acceptable for now. 

Chiarelli said that he expects the NHL’s hockey operations department to send out a notification of their heightened awareness of head shots in order to bridge the gap until the new rule can be put into effect next season, but he regrets that it will come too late to take any further action on Cooke.

“The timing is fortunate in a global sense,” Chiarelli said of the Cooke/Savard hit, “because it brings this [issue of hits to the head] even more to the forefront, but it’s obviously very unfortunate for the Bruins and Marc Savard.”

“I really am upset and I can’t believe [Cooke] wasn’t suspended,” he added, “But putting that aside [the rule change] is a real positive step.”

Meanwhile, the Bruins’ web site reports that Chiarelli has been unable to speak with Savard, who continues to fight concussion symptoms. 

“He’s been sleeping every day,” Chiarelli said.

OTHER PROPOSALS:

Two other recommendations came from the general managers’ meetings this week.

First is a proposal spearheaded by Columbus GM Scott Howson, that starting next year the first standings tiebreaker will be changed from most wins to most wins in regulation and overtime, diluting the importance of shootout victories to playoff races. 

The other is a suggestion that the American Hockey League use a two-referee system in 40 percent of its games next season in order to train and develop more referees to take the positions of retiring NHL officials.  The managers also agreed that should the American League go through with this change, the NHL would support the decision financially. 

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