A THREAD

NHL - HEAD SHOTS

Since the beginning of the season, I’ve been following my team, the Montreal Canadiens with a passion. So happy that hockey is back!

However, one thing I hate to see is injuries and players head hunting.

What led me to my small research was
1. 3 hits to the head where Habs were on the receiving end
2. 1 crosscheck to the back of the head by a Montreal player

Sample 1-
Tyler Myers on Joel Armia

Sample 2-
Dillon Dube on Jesperi Kotkaniemi

Sample 3-
Erik Gudbranson on Jake Evans

Sample 4-
Ben Chiarot on Tim Stützle

So this led me to a league wide research (not a homer research) to try to find out how the league is handling the so called shots to the head.
But as weird as it sounds, finding this information on any NHL related website was complicated so I had to revert to good old Wikipedia!

Let’s start by talking about the @NHLPlayerSafety department. This department was founded in 2011 and has seen 3 individuals at the head of it.
- Brendan Shanahan
- Stéphane Quintal
- George Parros (actual)
These 3 guys probably had the worst job in all of the NHL

Then I found this interesting quote while reading... they want to change player behaviour, make the game safer, but keep it physical.
And you know what, that’s excellent. That’s exactly what needs to be done. Don’t change the game...we just want to get rid of head hunting

Since 2011, that’s 10 years now (even though this year just started and there was a shorter season), they have issued a total of 99 suspensions that are attributed to hits to the head.

Quick Maths (even though that’s not exactly it) :
99/10 = 9,9 suspension/ year

Actually, here are the number of suspensions for head shots per year across the @NHL

2011-12: 19
2012-13: 10 (48 game season)
2013-14: 16
2014-15: 10
2015-16: 9
2016-17: 6
2017-18: 6
2018-19: 14
2019-20: 8 (approx 70 gm/team; covid)
2020-21: 1

As you can see, they started off strong but the pace has been down after the first years in.
In know this has nothing to do with a specific quota to reach, but if you want to “change player behaviour”, this number is abysmal.

Also I found that a total of 365 games of suspensions were handed.

This number is inflated by well deserved suspensions to Raffi Torres who accumulated 105 of these games on 3 occasions (25g, 6g, 41g).

Take him out of the equation, that’s an average of 2,7gm/suspension

Let’s get back to numbers.
Here is the average number of games/suspensions each year (incl Torres)

2011-12: 3,7 gm
2012-13: 5,3 gm
2013-14: 3 gm
2014-15: 3,1 gm
2015-16: 7 gm
2016-17: 2,5 gm
2017-18: 2,3 gm
2018-19: 2,8 gm
2019-20: 2,4 gm
2020-21: 1 gm

And now the top suspension each year
2011-12: Wisniewski 12g
2012-13: Torres 25g
2013-14: Kaleta 10g
2014-15: J. Moore 5g
2015-16: Torres 41g
2016-17: Pearson 3g
2017-18: Marchand 5g
2018-19: Wilson 14g (initially 20g)
2019-20: Perry 5g
2020-21: Blais 1g

Seems like they tried to make an example of Raffi Torres as a repeated offender and acted quickly.
But the bigger the name, the softer they get.

Here is the suspension that got him 41 games...is it that much different from what we see now? 41 GAMES

But I got to tip my hat when McDavid was suspended 2 games in 2018-19.

They got it right by suspending a superstar

Then I looked at the teams that were suspended the most:
1) Sharks 56 games
2) Coyotes 30 games
3) Sabres 25 games
4) Blue Jackets 24 games
5) Capitals 22 games
6) Boston 19 games
7) Rangers 18 games

On the opposing end, these teams barely ever got suspensions:
1) Carolina : 0 games
2) Vegas : 1 game
3) Colorado, NYI, Jets: 2 games each
6) Panthers : 3 games
7) NJD: 4 games
8) Nashville: 5 games

I have difficulty understanding the numbers here... these players are Saints?

Habs fans, we got penalized a total of 11 games.
Here’s the breakdown:
- Max Pacioretty 3 games vs Pens
- Ryan White 5 games vs Detroit
- Douglas Murray 3 games vs Tampa

Now let’s look at who was on the receiving end of the hits...in other words the teams against who the suspensions were given:
1) Anaheim : 47 gm
2) Chicago : 38 gm
3) St-Louis : 25 gm
4) Boston : 24 gm
5) Minnesota: 23 gm

But then those against who suspensions are never called:
1) Panthers/Coyotes: 2 gm
3) Jets/Stars/Leafs: 3 gm each
6) Vegas: 5 gm
7) NYI/Flames/Pens/SJS: 6gm

Once again, for Habs fans:
We were next on the list with 7 gm total suspensions given when we were on the receiving end of headshots.
Thanks to my friend @EhMarchand, we were able to find a list where Habs players were not penalized:

I’m sure and putting each team to do the same, we could find so many unpunished shots to the head. And if we expose the @NHLPlayerSafety we could maybe as fans change the true culture of the game and help change player behaviour.

Now imagine how many Suspensions went unpunished through the past 10 years and how you could have, in the matter of these 10 years, drastically changed player behaviour and made the game safer.

Thanks for reading!
Stay safe everybody!
Wear a mask!