What’s Up With Ovechkin’s Suspension?
After a knee on knee collision with Tim Gleason of the Carolina Hurricanes, Alex Ovechkin has been suspended for two games. He was also issued a 5 minute major and game misconduct for kneeing. This is his second game misconduct in three games.
He was suspended for two games as a result of the incident. However, Ovechkin said that the knee was unintentional, and that Gleason turned away suddenly.
After looking at the replay, I kind of have to agree with him, after you commit to a check, it’s very difficult to adjust when a player changes directions.
Obviously, the NHL did not see that the same way I did. To me, there was nothing malicious about it, but the NHL obviously saw something. I haven’t heard an explanation from the NHL, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t given one, I may have missed it (if you heard one, please leave a comment and let me know what they said).
But, I don’t think that any explanation will change my opinion. I looked at the hit, I saw the replay, and there wasn’t any chance that he meant to knee Gleason.
A lot of people are thinking that Ovechkin stuck his knee out, but if you look at the replay, you’ll see that Ovechkin was leaning into a hit. He was not sticking his knee out, he was sticking his shoulder out. You can see him try to change directions with Gleason. This supports his story that he was trying to do a regular hit.
Anyway, please leave a comment, I’m anxious to see what you have to say about this topic because I know that not everybody will agree with me.
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This hit, in particular, doesn’t look that bad, but as an admittedly biased Pens fan, I’ve seen Ovy make knee on knee hits all too often. He put Sergei Gonchar out in the playoffs last year with a very similar hit. I think the league is punishing the pattern moreso than this actual check.
I feel it is about time that Ovechkin sees some repercussions for his actions. He consistently lays hit on his opponents that would send any other “goon” into a suspension period. If you watch him closely, he only seems to hit players while they heads are down or tries to blindside them. Last May, he layed a similar knee-to-knee hit on Sergi Gonchar of the Pittsburgh Penguins that put Gonchar out for a decent amount of the 2009 playoffs. The NHL took no action at the time and continued to let Ovechkin’s “superstar” status outweigh his cheap shot mentality. I say that he deserves this suspension and should be watched more closely once it is through. Thank you NHL for FINALLY recognizing that Ovechkin needs to be held to the same standards as everyone else.