You Be The Judge: Nino Niederreiter’s “Good, Open Ice Hit” to the Head of Alex Burrows
If you want to get your blood boiling early on a Thursday morning, watch the Minnesota feed of Nino Niederreiter’s elbow to the head of Alex Burrows.
“Ridiculous call”, they say. “Good, open ice hit”, they say.
In terms of homer announcers, this one tops the charts.
For all the heightened sensitivity to head shots and concussions and all that, the NHL, of course, agrees with them, and Niederreiter is scot-free and has been cleared to play in the Wild’s game tonight in St. Louis. In other words, the NHL has deemed his 2-minute trip to the box as sufficient penalty for coming at an opposing player from the blindside and lifting his elbow to hit his head.
I guess hits to the head are good hits again. His teammate, Matt Cooke, will be proud.
You be the judge.
wow… im shocked that such an obvious high elbow goes unpunished?!. proves that the NHL really does hate vancouver.. nice work Shanahan..
Apparently Burrows “deserves” to hit like that.
The call was interference…the puck was on Burrows stick…the call can’t get much more ridiculous than that. Clearly the refs, and nhl, and those clearly much less biased than you felt that the primary contact was with Burrows’ chest, which I’d agree with. Just because a guy went down or got hurt doesn’t mean it’s a dirty hit.
I’m a Canucks fan. That’s a legit hit. Burrows should’ve protected himself.
Not a Canucks fan, Wild fan or fan of all the suspensions the league has handed out in recent years but this hit is a textbook suspension – should have been one or two games based on previous decisions. The failure to hit through the body makes it suspension-worthy (in NHL parlance). Shanahan has said many times that the fact the person taking the hit is spun around is a dead giveaway. Canucks got hosed.
That’s in no way clean. Not even close. And in the past it has NOT been the player’s responsibility to protect his head from another player lifting his elbow into his face. Because elbows aren’t supposed to be allowed. Really not cool.
Amen. Well said.
Sure, Burrows should’ve kept his head up, but NN also came from the blindside and obviously lifted his elbow to hit Burrows to the head. If Kassian had thrown that hit on Parise, Kassian wouldn’t be playing until next season.
If primary contact was with Burrows’ chest, my grade 11 Physics says Burrows he wouldn’t have fallen the way he did.