I’m back (you had to expect it right?). I don’t think either hit should be suspended, so let’s get that out first. I think there are two things that make the Kaleta hit marginally worse than the AO hit. First, I’m not positive Ross saw Kaleta coming. I think he might have but after watching a few times it looks like he may have been more preoccupied looking at the other forechecker. Kaleta definitely saw AO coming so there’s no disputing that he couldn have defended himself better.

Second, Kaleta hit Ross square in the back. AO didn’t hit Kaleta square in the back. I maintain that AO hit Kaleta on the shoulder. I know you disagree with that but even if you thought AO got Kaleta’s back I don’t think you could say that he got Kaleta more squarely in the back than Kaleta got Ross. The result of the square back shot was that Ross’ head was driven right into the glass. Kaleta hit his head on the boards because of how he was spinning when he got hit.

Again, I don’t think either hit should have been suspended but if one hit is worse than the other the hit Kaleta gave was worse than the one he received. I’d guess Kaleta was probably suspended because of his reputation, though that’s not an entirely satisfactory answer to me either. Both hits deserved 2 or 4 minutes, that’s all.

(Thanks for switching feeds in this post, and keeping a good discussion going on the merits.)

Regardless of which hit was worse they are esentially the same hit. Suspend both or neither other them.

I don’t even think it’s so much that the NHL loves their star players and refuses to suspend them but perhaps that the NHL HATES their “bad boys” (Sean Avery as an example) and suspends them whenever they can.

Either way you can’t deny that the NHL has an agenda on suspensions.

I am 1) wrong and 2) a liar

1) Yes – You still maintain that OV is a dirty player. He is not, reckless maybe but definitely not dirty. The Kaleta hit did not deserve a game misconduct let alone a suspension. The Gleason hit however does deserve a suspension but again it was not a dirty hit.

and

2) Yes- I still don’t buy that you can be a fan of a player that you think is so dirty that you go out of your way to write several posts about it. And if you do, well that says a lot more about you as a person than anything else.