Torres to meet with the Shanahammer

IMG_5555.jpg (Photo credit: bridgetds)

Phoenix Coyotes forward Raffi Torres has his day in court. The fact that the hearing is in person in the NHL's New York office does not bode well for Mr. Torres because the NHL is about to make an example out of him.

NEW YORK -- Phoenix Coyotes forward Raffi Torres has been suspended indefinitely, pending an in-person hearing Friday, April 20, the National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety announced today. The hearing, which had been planned for today, was deferred at the request of the player and the National Hockey League Players' Association.

You can expect that Brendan Shanahan is going to take Raffi Torres to the woodshed and this one going to hurt and it’s going to be easy for Shanny, Torres did it to himself and he has no one to blame but himself.

Torres is a villain; he is also a poster boy of what is wrong with the NHL in the minds of many fans. Torres is also a Matt Cooke type player, and also a repeat offender that hasn’t changed his game when the game has started to evolve.

Related articles

• Raffi Torres Suspended Indefinitely (tracking.si.com)
• Coyotes' Raffi Torres suspended indefinitely (newsok.com)

Raffi Torres, "I just felt like it was a hockey play"

I was watching the Phoenix Coyotes game last night and like most was shocked to see that Raffi Torres wasn’t kicked out of the game for his check on Marian Hossa. The even more puzzling thing was the fact that Torres wasn't challenged to a fight later in the game by one of the Blackhawks players. Now the Chicago Blackhawks have to depend on the NHL’s Department of Player Safety to see if they respond to this hit.

True to form Raffi Torres saw nothing wrong with the hit in question, of course Sociopaths never do, so none of us should be shocked by the lack of remorse, shame or guilt from Torres.

"First off, I hope he's alright. As far as the hit goes, I just felt like it was a hockey play, just trying to finish my hit out there," said Torres. "The last thing I'll say is a I hope he's alright."

Did he leave his skates? Does he think he'll be suspended?

"I'm not gonna answer that," he said, before leaving the postgame interviews. [Puck Daddy]

Most of us have no idea what transpires out of this hit and it will be interesting to see if Torres is suspended by the NHL or not. Some have predicted that Torres could get a very long suspension and could be suspended into next season for his efforts on the ice last night. Personally, I would be shocked based on some of the rulings that Shanahan has come up with in the playoffs up to this point. One thing hanging over Torres’ head is that he a repeat offender and has been suspended twice in the past 13 months. Ironically, this hit took played one year to the date of his hit on the Blackhawks defenseman Brent Seabrook.

Raffi Torres hit on Marian Hossa

One year to the day after Phoenix Coyotes forward Raffi Torres hit On Brent Seabrook with a questionable hit behind the Blackhawks net Torres laid out Marian Hossa with this hit. The problem is that Torres left his feet to make this hit. The NBC broadcast crew interviewed the Blawkhawks head coach  Joel Quenneville on the bench and it was pretty obvious that he was very angry that four guys on the ice could miss that hit.

You would have to think that Raffi Torres might be looking at a big suspension and the possibility that this could be his last game during the 2012 playoffs, or not. Hossa was carried off of the ice on a stretcher and there was no penalty on the play.

Andrew Shaw ejected for decleating Coyotes goalie Mike Smith

The Blackhawks forward Andrew Shaw was ejected from last night's game for hitting Coyotes goalie Mike Smith. Depending on what angle you watch this collision from, it does appear that Shaw caught Smith with an elbow in the head. I think that Shaw could have avoided this collision and this was an unnecessary hit on the goalie who was playing the puck.

It also appears that Smith might have embellished this hit a bit and some have suggest that Smith should get a n Oscar for his efforts. I was watching the game with my buddy last night and I suggested this to him. Kind of reminds me of another goalie that tended to embellish a bit on the ice every time someone tapped him.

There are other hockey fans that have advocated that the goalie should be fair game if he steps outside of his crease.  I think the best way to start a brawl is to run the other teams goalie.

Related articles

• Mike Smith Shakes Off Violent Hit; Coyotes Maintain Lead (arizona.sbnation.com)
• NHL playoffs: Chicago Blackhawks beat Phoenix Coyotes in dramatic fashion (thestar.com)
• Hawks tie up series with OT win over Coyotes (sports.espn.go.com)
• Andrew Shaw levels Coyotes' Mike Smith; Gets Ejected (tshq.co)

Raffi Torres is at it again.

Raffi Torres is a dirty and reckless players and if you watch this video, you probably have come to the conclusion that Torres should have been suspended a long time ago and for a very long time. The next time this guy hits someone in the head, and it will probably be next week, he should be gone; suspended for 10 games this time.

Last week we had Torres doing this despicable act.

This is the proper response for someone that hits one of your fellow players in the head, this is called sticking up for your fellow players, instead of waiting for the refs to make the call. Nothing pleases me more than watching Adam McQuaid work Raffi Torres like a punching bag.

Let's not kid ourselves, Raffi Torres is notorious for racing all over the ice, taking unneeded runs at guys, many times Torres hits players with dirty hits like this hit on Brent Seabrook last spring during the Stanley Cup playoffs.

It's about time this gutless puke pays for his act of transgression on the ice. You can hit someone hard and make a good body check without having to hit a opponent in the head. Nice to see that Brendan Shanahan has gotten it right twice in the same week. Some Day Torres is also going to get what he has coming to him, you would have thought he would have learned his lesson when Adam McQuaid beat the tar out of him.

Related articles

• Adam McQuaid works Raffi Torres like a clown (mvn.com)
• Coyotes' Raffi Torres fined for head shot (theglobeandmail.com)
• Adam McQuaid fights angry, beats the hell out of Raffi Torres (ballhyped.com)
• Phoenix Coyotes' Raffi Torres fined $2,500 for hit on Colorado's Jan Hejda (thehockeynews.com)

Adam McQuaid works Raffi Torres like a clown

This is the proper response for someone that hits one of your fellow players in the head, this is called sticking up for your fellow players, instead of waiting for the refs to make the call. Nothing pleases me more than watching Adam McQuaid work Raffi Torres like a punching bag.

Let's not kid ourselves, Raffi Torres is notorious for racing all over the ice, taking unneeded runs at guys, many times Torres hits players with dirty hits like this hit on Brent Seabrook last spring during the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Whatcha gonna do Daniel Carcillo?

So the Chicago Blackhawks have added known NHL pest Daniel “Car Bomb” Carcillo during the off-season to help keep the opposition players in check.  So my next question is; does that include getting beat up by players like current Winnipeg Jet and former Colorado College Tiger defenseman Mark Stewart?

I mean what is Daniel Carcillo going to bring to the table for the Chicago Blackhawks? Is Daniel Carcillo going to be a pain in the ass on ice and take stupid penalties for the Chicago Blackhawks? Doesn’t take a lot of talent to do that… I suppose Carcillo he can punch out star players like the Sedin twins (Ala Marian Gaborik) and play the same role that Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kevin Beiksa does. I mean it doesn't really take that much talent to beat up on skilled players that aren't known for dropping the gloves and fighting.

Tim Sassone; Daily Herald --- Like him or not (I like him), the Blackhawks aren't going to be dull with Daniel Carcillo on the ice and in the dressing room.

Carcillo met the media for the first time on Monday since signing with the Hawks as a free agent and said all the right things, particularly how he already has a dislike for the Vancouver Canucks.

“I watched that (playoff) series and I'm actually pretty excited to play them because there's a few guys there that played a little bit outside their shoes and I think I can keep most of those guys in check when we play them this year,” Carcillo said. “Lapierre, Glass and Torres. Lapierre's at the top of the list.”

Who cares if Torres and Glass are no longer with the Canucks, Carcillo's point was those three players he felt took liberties with the Hawks in the playoffs, no doubt remembering Torres' head shot on Brent Seabrook. And from the sound of it, those are the things Carcillo won't let happen this season.

“I think after the team won the Stanley Cup they lost some of their grit, and I think everybody realized that,” Carcillo said. “Stan has brought me in and brought Jamal (Mayers) in and brought Steve (Montador) in to get that back and to get that attitude and swagger back they had when they won the Cup that year.

“This team has always had that attitude and swagger to it. It's going to be exciting to bring that back. The biggest thing that me and Stan have talked about is just to get that attitude back and that push back and that (bleep) you attitude, you know what I mean?”

Carcillo will start the season with a two-game suspension from an incident in the playoffs but said it comes with the territory.

Related articles

• Chicago Blackhawks Countdown to Camp: Competition at the Remaining Forward Spots (bleacherreport.com)
• NHL suspends Flyers' Dan Carcillo for 2 games (sports.espn.go.com)
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Damien Cox: Loving these Canucks sure isn’t easy

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeI am “not always” a fan of Damien Cox he is a pretty good writer but I don’t agree with his opinions on many things, this article really nails it out of the park. I think Cox is spot on when describing the Vancouver Canucks and their on ice behavior.

Damien Cox; Toronto Star ---- understand why so many screw their faces at these Canucks like they just heard Sarah Palin make another historical funny, there are many points of reference to consider.

Bringing in Max Lapierre from Montreal (via Anaheim, of course) at the trade deadline just added a trash-talking player notorious for faking injuries and fouls. As one joke goes, when Lapierre left the Canadiens, it meant Alexandre Despatie was left as the No. 1 diver in Quebec.

This is a team of Bill Barbers, and the last thing it needed for its image was another one.

Kevin Bieksa has beat up two non-fighters in the post-season, Viktor Stalberg and Patrick Marleau, and both bouts lacked any sense of honour. The head shots by Raffi Torres and Aaron Rome that left opposing players concussed at the same time the sports world in general frets about brain injuries were reckless and unnecessary.

Alex Burrows lowered the bar with his chomp on the peaceful Patrice Bergeron in Game 1, made worse by the league’s decision not to do anything about it and Lapierre’s mocking of that decision in Game 2. Burrows got into a stick-fight with Boston goalie Tim Thomas in Game 4, a fight he started.

Every game, it seems, there’s another line crossed. In Game 4, Ryan Kesler got back to his old whine-at-the-refs mode, something he’d removed from his repertoire.

Pressure and push-back does funny things, huh?

Again, the Canucks probably don’t really care how they’re remembered. They just want to win, and history will take care of itself in the Land of the Hockey Conspiracy Theory.

But if they don’t, we’ll be left to wonder if what seemed to be an inability to draw within the lines was really a tip-off that the Canucks couldn’t walk a straight one when they needed to.

I have said many of the same things during the Stanley Cup playoffs about the Vancouver Canucks; the Canucks in my opinion are one of the most unlikable teams in the NHL history, they are a bunch of whiny punks. Seriously! I don’t understand how the Bruins can keep from pounding guys like Alex Burrows and Maxim Lapierre? This two buffoons lack any sense of class and sportsmanship and I believe that their coach is in a way culpable because he has condoned their on ice behavior.

Call the Canucks a Whambulance

We are going to have to call the Vancouver Canucks a whambulance. I mean seriously, the call against Alex Burrows for knocking over Tim Thomas was the correct call, you can't do that in any league. Also, I have never seen so much whining about the officials, every time there is a call against the Canucks the CBC cameras pan to the Vancouver Canucks GM in sky box for his reaction to the call on the ice. I was also wondering why CBC doesn’t pan the camera to the Boston Bruins GM’s box to see his reaction as well.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- The Vancouver Canucks were not surprised by Boston goalie Tim Thomas' outstanding play Wednesday night in the opener of the Stanley Cup final.

They simply took issue with where Thomas played.

Coach Alain Vigneault joined several Canucks in questioning Thomas' aggressive positioning well outside his crease, complaining specifically about a tripping penalty to Alex Burrows for bumping Thomas outside the blue paint.

But, as Thomas and Bruins coach Claude Julien pointed out ahead of Game 2 tonight, the goalie's right to stop the puck unimpeded is not limited to the crease.


"I have the right to go anywhere there's open ice," said Thomas, who made 33 saves -- many spectacular -- before Raffi Torres scored Game 1's only goal with 18.5 seconds to play.

"If I'm set, I have a right to that ice. If I'm out of the paint and I'm set, I also have the right of way to get back to the crease. That's the way I understand it."

There's no doubting Thomas, who joined Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo as a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goalie, is more aggressive than most. He relies on his ability to read and react to plays from his skates, rather than playing the more passive, on-the-knees butterfly style common today.

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• Thomas' Roaming Goaltending Perplexes Canucks (nytimes.com)
• Thomas' roaming goaltending perplexes Canucks (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• 2011 Stanley Cup Finals: Today's News on Boston Bruins and Vancouver Canucks (bleacherreport.com)
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• Bruins Vs. Canucks, Game 2: Boston Needs To Find More Offense, Somehow Stop Vancouver (sbnation.com)

Tin foil hats are coming out in Vancouver!!! More whining about the officials…

If you haven’t seen this article you might want to take a look at it, it’s worth a look due to it’s ridiculous nature. All season long Boston Bruins fans have heard fans from fans of other NHL teams whining about how the Boston Bruins have gotten all of the breaks hen it comes to disciplinary rulings because Greg Campbell son of Colin Campbell plays or the Boston Bruins.

Tony Gallagher; The Providence --- We're going to ask this question now, once and for all and then try to hold our peace until the end of the Stanley Cup playoffs. We can't say forever hold our peace, but for a while at least.

Straight up, can the Vancouver Canucks get a fair shake with the officiating in the final? Consider Gregory Campbell plays for the Boston Bruins and his father Colin Campbell is senior vice-president in charge of hockey operations for the NHL. What father doesn't want to have his son's name on the Stanley Cup? And of course what is so stunning about this is that the NHL fails to perceive any conflict of interest whatsoever, even though there is no shortage of lawyers running about the head offices in New York. At least that's the NHL claim.

During the season the biggest problems arose on supplementary discipline, but that's not the consideration here. After all, you only get a one-game suspension for any transgression during the playoffs, and in most cases there are no suspensions whatsoever. You'd have to punch a fan in the face repeatedly to get two or more, so barring some strange circumstances this is not the issue.

If Raffi Torres ran over Patrice Bergeron, for example, Campbell would not make a decision on supplementary discipline because the Bruins are involved. Instead, his best friend Mike Murphy with whom he works every day would make the decision, if that makes you feel any better. Of course, that's a total joke in it's own right as well, but it's not likely to be an issue.

The problem is the on-ice officials. They are appointed by a department for which Campbell has responsibility and the entire progress of their careers is totally controlled by these people. They decide when the officials work, how much they work and as such how much they get paid.

For each round in the playoffs a referee works, he gets an extra $18,000 over and above his yearly salary. For a linesman it's $12,000. So if you please the powers that be, you work lots. If you don't please them for whatever reason, you don't get to work in the playoffs. The officials working the final are the guys the league thinks are the best and as we've seen from the exchange of leaked memos a while back, Campbell can often be involved in those discussions.

And make no mistake, we're not talking about any communication between these respective parties at any time. There's no conspiracy. The officials know what their bosses need and know how to please them.

Now any official who happens to displease the powers for whatever reason—serious mistakes we'd like to believe—could find himself not working the final all of a sudden (although that wouldn't affect his pay this year) and his employment considerations for the future would be open to question. Maybe he gets no playoff work the following year. Maybe it could be so serious that his contract might be re-considered in the future. The bottom line is these guys in the hockey operations department—of which one is the father of one of the games' participants-- control every aspect of an official's employment.

No, no conflict of interest here.

First off; this past season Mike Murphy has dealt with the Boston Bruins during their supplemental discipline hearings because Greg Campbell is the son of Colin Campbell and he plays for the Boston Bruins. Personally, I think this is just more of the Vancouver Canucks fans, media and their front office staff trying to get the upper hand on the Boston Bruins. The comments to this article are equally interesting as well… EDIT: It’s being reported that Colin Campbell is resigning as NHL disciplinarian and being replaced by Brendan Shanahan.

Related articles

• Colin Campbell to step down as NHL disciplinarian: report (thestar.com)
• Report: Colin Campbell out as NHL disciplinarian (aol.sportingnews.com)
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• Report: Colin Campbell to step down as league disciplinarian, Brendan Shanahan to replace him (prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com)
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Vancouver Canucks forward Raffi Torres gets off Scott free... No suspension coming...

The NHL has decided that it will not suspend Raffi Torres for this hit on Brent Seabrook, of course the Vancouver Canucks fans are happy with this ruling. I think this was a dangerous hit and that some kind of a fine or suspension was warranted. What do you think?

TSN.CA STAFF --- Vancouver Canucks forward Raffi Torres will have no further discipline assessed following his hit on Blackhawks' defenceman Brent Seabrook during Game 3 of their series on Sunday night.

There was no scheduled hearing with the league on Monday. The NHL's Hockey Operations department said that the rule did not violate Rule 48, which provides an interpretation that the area behind the net is designated as a "hitting area".

Torres caught Seabrook with a shoulder to the head during a collision behind Chicago's net midway through the second period. The Vancouver player was given an interference penalty on the play.

Raffi Torres Hit On Brent Seabrook

Raffi Torres just got back from a four game suspension and he goes out and does this hit on Brent Seabrook, I predict there is going to be another call from the NHL and possibly another unpaid vacation from the NHL for Raffi Torres.

NHL throws the book at Raffi Torres for his hit on Jordan Eberle

Last night Chris Wassel, Tim Rosenthal and I were discussing the Raffi Torres hit on Jordan Eberle during the Program radio show and I mentioned that the NHL has pinned themselves into a corner and they have to act and give some teeth to the Torres hit. Personally, I never thought the NHL would put this much teeth into this particular head shot. That being said, Raffi Torres will miss the first two games of the Canucks playoff series.

There are some that are upset with the way the NHL front office has responded to this hit, I don't think it's an understatement to say that they responded in a very punitive fashion, rightfully so! A word to the wise, don’t hit someone in the head with a elbow if you don’t want to be suspended by the NHL.

The fact that people are defending this hit and saying it’s not worthy of a suspension are oblivious to the fact that Torres hit a player in a vulnerable position in the head with a chicken wing elbow. Raffi Torres is a buffoon for thinking this is a clean hit, "If they are trying to get rid of clean hits like that, what's this league going to be in a couple of years?" This was a blatant elbow to an opposition players head.

Per the Nick Kypreos --> Canucks Torres gets suspended for 4 games...

Torres gets four games for elbow

Raffi Torres Hit elbow Jordan Eberle

Check out this obvious elbow by the Canucks Raffi Torres on Oilers winger Jordan Eberle. How many games does Torres sit for that hit? I am going with two games. What do you think?