Shanahan waffles back and forth with that bullshit "hitter/hittee responsibility" idea of his in just about every goddamn review he has, he's become a joke almost as much as Campbell was, which is incredible and something I thought I'd never see. So no, it's not exactly a strong argument using "Well Shanahan said it was or wasn't this, so he must be right.." just because it confirms your personal feelings on this.</p>
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Wilson had that choice from blue line on in, he saw what was developing, a lot more than Schenn did. And what he saw was an opprotuinity for a crushing hit, to make an impression, not just to go in on the forecheck. Schenn can't do anything in that situation. He never saw it until the last nanosecond. Either way his ass is going into the boards, Tom Wilson is, what, 6'4? He towers over him. He was going into the boards no matter what move he made in the fraction of a second he had to attempt to make a move, let alone the "right" move. So there's no defense here in that if only Schenn would've made the right move, it wouldn't be nearly as bad. It's crazy we can't even agree that it was charging, but even if it wasn't charging, it's still a hit you cannot make under those circumstances. Unless you've been living under a rock, the league has been saying for years, they want to better protect players who are in defenseless positions getting hit and to make it clear that it can't be tolerated. And this was one of them. Another one they failed in handling. </p>
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Remember when we were talking about cutting down on dangerous hits? How the league has to remove it's head from it's ass and actually start suspending guys in order to curb their behavior so they don't do things like that again? How important it was? 'Member that? As long as the league continues to victim blame in situations like this and due in part because of it, get the hitter off the hook from discipline, it's never going to happen. As long as they continue to deflect blame, even if just a little, to the victims of hits that are choices of players like Tom Wilson deciding to launch another player in a defenseless position into the boards like that, nothing is going to change, players won't stop doing that.</p>
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Of course Wilson is going to say he only made the decision to hit Schenn at a later point (which still shouldn't matter, because you still can't make that hit). Just like Neal is going to say his knee to the head of Marchand was completely incidental. If it suits their purposes to lie, they'll lie. Got nothing to lose at that point. This is a kid who's not playing a whole hell of a lot of minutes, he's a rookie not afraid to dish out big hits playing on the 4th line with not a whole lot of scoring opportunities trying to make an impression. Those factors alone make for a potential recipe for disaster. And going by Oates' reaction of him not even seeing it as a penalty and as a clean hit, it sure looks like he made a favorable one and combined with the NHL's ruling on this along with his coach's encouragement, I wouldn't doubt he learned nothing and that a similar incident involving him crops up later in the season.</p>
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So congrats NHL, for erring on the side of stupidity once again.</p>
