The NHL has a consistency problem, and the handling of the Matt Niskanen situation on Brendan Gallagher is one the Montreal Canadiens now have to deal with.
For a spot that has its coaches and upper management groups talk about consistency all the time, it’s really not all that consistent. Think about it. How many times have teams let a prospect a go or deemed a trade a bust because they couldn’t get the same effort and results from a player on a nightly basis? Even the Montreal Canadiens are victims of this as Jonathan Drouin has had a polarizing run in the city. However, the league’s decision-making as far as officiating and supplementary discipline goes, has been as inconsistent as you can get.
It’s been very apparent this playoffs, and more and more fans are bringing it to the surface. We’ll start with the boarding major on Jesperi Kotkaniemi.
Is it a penalty? Yeah. Kotkaniemi hits Travis Sanheim right in the numbers and doesn’t try to ease up on the hit. It’s boarding every day of the week. The major is up for debate, but you can rationalize it being a major because of the seriousness of the hit.
Was it a game-misconduct? Yeah. Sanheim was bleeding after Kotkaniem’s hit. According to the NHL Rulebook (41.5), “When a major penalty is imposed under this rule (boarding) for a foul resulting in an injury to the face or head of an opponent, a game misconduct shall be imposed.”
There’s no debating that one, it was boarding, the refs deemed it a major, and Sanheim was bleeding. Off to the locker room, you go.
Now, hockey minds will say you’ll get yourself in trouble if you play the pointing game. Things always look worse when you compare incidents in one game, to incidents in another game. However, the raw comparisons are so jarring that it’s impossible to ignore.