Unfortunately, in today's NHL, we don't see too many clean booming hits anymore. Players today all too often go for the big hit and end up letting their elbows flair and they occasionally leave their feat and/or target the head. That's what makes this hit all the more special/awesome.
In last night's game 3 between the Canucks and the Kings, LA captain Dustin Brown lined up Vancouver captain Henrik Sedin from a mile away. Sedin had to wait JUST outside the LA zone to stay onside and has he was beginning to circle around (to avoid Anze Kopitar), Brown came out of nowhere and knocked him down hard.
The hit was monstrous and Sedin had to take several seconds to regain balance/to remember what area code he was in.
Brown is known for his physical presence and shows it here. But Vancouver fans actually wanted Brown suspended, something that I find even more ridiculous than Ranger fans upset with the Hagelin ruling!
So I wanted to look at this hit in every possible way and dispute the request for suspension.
First off, Henrik Sedin AND head coach Alain Vigneault both said it was a clean hit.
It was not "charging". Charging can be called when a player leaves his feet in a hit or travels a distance directly at a player for the hit. It was neither. True, Brown had the hit set up from just beyond Centre Ice but Sedin was just standing there with the puck so it was not a penalty.
It was not "boarding" for obvious reasons.
It was not "elbowing". Sure, Brown's elbow flared up at the end of the hit but that was just on his follow through. His actual hit was shoulder-to-shoulder and his elbow popped up when Henrik went down. People often confuse that with elbowing and it is one reason why people view Scott Stevens' hits as dirty (clean hit by Stevens). They see the elbow flare up after the hit and automatically consider it elbowing. But it's a natural occurrence especially on big hits like these.
It was not a head shot. Like I said before, it was shoulder-to-shoulder.
It was not interference. The hit was immediately following a pass by Sedin and it was in less than the half a second (.5 seconds) that the NHL gives to make a hit after a pass.
People did question the hit as a "blindside" hit or that Sedin was in a "vulnerable" position. However, the blindside terminology was removed from Rule 48 definition a year ago. Blindside is not a factor anymore. The important distinction now is between "unsuspecting" and "defenseless" players. An unsuspecting player puts himself in that situation while a defenseless player is one who has no reasonable expectation of being hit (i.e. a defenseman who is hit from behind along the boards). Henrik was not at all defenseless and was more of an unsuspecting player with his back turned to the play. When he made the play along the boards, he had to suspect that a hit was coming. He figured that he was all clear of everyone besides for Kopitar who was coming in on him which was why he turned. That last second turn made the hit not from behind.
So to sum up, it was not targetting the head, late (interference), elbowing, charging, or boarding. It was just one fine hell of a hit.
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