NHL Department of Player Safety Making Clueless Decisions Punishing Matt Rempe Less Than Brendan Gallagher

The Montreal Canadiens, along with 31 other teams around the National Hockey League, have no idea what deicisions are going to be made by the Department of Player Safety.

The department has been called out countless times by players and coaches around the league, and just continue to make questionable, odd decisions when it comes to supplemental discipline on dangerous plays.

George Parros is the head of player safety, which is kind of ironic since he made things rather dangerous for opposing players during his NHL career. Still, he is well educated and played a long time in the NHL, so he should be able to handle the job, right?

Well, he seems to be about as consistent as the average joe's golf game. Sometimes he seems to know what he is doing and is stringing decisions together that make sense. And other times he clearly contradicts himself and makes ridiculous rulings.

Nothing made less sense that ending Andrew Cogliano's incredible ironman streak by giving him a two game suspension for what should have been a two minute interference penalty.

More recently, Brendan Gallagher was given a five game suspension for throwing an elbow at the last second and clipping New York Islanders defenseman Adam Pelech in the face. No one complained about this penalty as it made sense. Hit a guy late with a chicken wing elbow to the face and sit for five games. Even if you are Brendan Gallagher who was never suspended before during his more than 700 NHL game career.

So, when rookie Matt Rempe did the exact same thing in his 10th career NHL games, and was thrown out of a game for the second time already, he somehow gets less punishment? Rempe, who has not been able to finish 20% of his career games due to dangerous plays, was given a four game ban, meaning his "clean record" that includes eight of ten games meant more to George Parros than Gallagher's 700 game track record of non-dangerous play.

It doesn't make sense, but these decisions never do. Actually, the fact they got almost the same number of games maybe shows some growth by Parros? I still don't know how he could explain Rempe getting less than Gallagher but at least it wasn't a fine, or nothing at all, like last time Rempe ran a New Jersey Devils player with a dangerous head hit.

It makes no sense that the same hit results in a different suspension. If anything, Gallagher's extremely long track record of no supplementary discipline should benefit his case, while Rempe's reckless play for less than a dozen career games should make his suspension longer.

But, George Parros once again found a way to just not make sense, which is pretty much what he has done with every decision so far in this job.