The NHL’s Department of Player Safety just keeps getting things wrong. It did it again on Saturday when it announced a hearing for Florida Panthers forward A.J. Greer. That hearing comes after Greer was ejected from Friday’s game against the Calgary Flames for a dangerous and reckless boarding incident that saw him send Connor Zary head-first into the boards.
The issue is not the hearing itself, but the manner in which the hearing will be conducted and what that means for potential discipline.
If A.J. Greer is suspended, it will not be long enough
Greer’s hearing on Sunday will be conducted by phone, meaning any potential suspension will be capped at only five games.
For a suspension to be longer than five games, the hearing has to be conducted in person. So, by only speaking to Greer over the phone, it means five games is the maximum he will receive. Even if he gets the maximum penalty he can with this hearing, that will still be far from.
The NHL’s Department of Player Safety has been coming under increased criticism in recent weeks for a perceived lack of consistency and not doing enough to punish dangerous and illegal hits. The loudest calls came after Anaheim Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas (a player who had been suspended four previous times in his career) injured Toronto Maple Leafs superstar Auston Matthews with a knee-on-knee hit that ended his season.
Gudas received a five-game suspension that was called “preposterous” by Matthews’ agent.
When the NHL’s general managers met this past week, the topic of player safety and the job the department is doing was brought up. It resulted in commissioner Gary Bettman reportedly having an exchange with Carolina Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky. Tulsky had spoken up that he agreed with an anonymous owner who was unhappy with the league’s handling of hits to the head, resulting in Bettman reportedly saying, “Well, I guess we know which owner it was.”
If Gudas’ suspension was preposterous, suspending Greer for five games or less should be considered insulting to the intelligence of everybody watching the NHL.
It was not an instance of a player getting caught out of position and trying to make a last-second change of position and catching them with a knee. It was not a player lowering their head at the last split second and leaving a defender in a position where head contact was unavoidable. It was not a blink-of-the-eye play that could not be avoided.
This was a player deliberately giving a two-handed shove in the back of a defenseless player and sending them head-first into the boards. It is one of the most dangerous plays that can happen in the sport, and one that is completely avoidable. There is no excuse for it. There is no reason for it. Greer knew exactly what he was doing and made a deliberate attempt to send Zary down to the ice in a vulnerable position. The fact that Zary was able to walk away without a serious injury is more luck than anything else.
The nature of the hit, the fact that Greer has been suspended previously in his career, and the fact that it could have easily resulted in a significant head injury (the very type of injuries that the department was created to help prevent) make anything less than six games an absolute sham. Which is what the entire department has become. A sham.