NO you SENILE MORONIC TURD Tortorella was Pissed because his team Blew Goats

& it wasn’t an Elbow it was the shoulder pad that hit Anisimov & he didn’t “appear” to leave his feet because he didn’t

Keep Playing Brashear & Ovary Torotella

Posted by Evilpens on 11/29/09 at 03:14 PM ET

How about Avery’s headshot to Crosby? Cooke’s hit was only a retaliation for that cheapshot by the Ranger’s biggest idiot!

Posted by Joe on 11/29/09 at 03:43 PM ET

Exactly, Avery would get jumped every single game if there was no instigator.  Either that, or he’d quickly turn into a lady byng candidate very quickly…

Posted by Greg on 11/29/09 at 03:47 PM ET

^Do you guys actually want to keep the instigator rule?

I don’t and am happy to read any article that argues against it.

Posted by Osrt on 11/29/09 at 03:54 PM ET

why should Cooke fight a worthless TURD of a “Player” when his team is up by 3 goals, Because of a hit, old “HUGGY BEAR” wanted nothing to do with Godard when he was lined up with him on a faceoff

Cooke didn’t do anything wrong, Most players in the League leave their feet went they hit guys, The Biggest moron to do that is JAWS Ovechkin

Posted by Evilpens on 11/29/09 at 04:06 PM ET

Players that don’t fight now and and play dirty won’t fight if the instigator is lifted and they will NOT stop playing dirty. This is why they have a job, if they stop they won’t be in the line-up.They’ll just tirtle and force the officials to jump in when another player tries to “make hime pay”.
Lifting the instigator will only lead to more brawls which in turn can lead to injuries. It won’t stop players from dirty play. Dirty player and cheap shots have always been in the game and will probably always be in the game.

Posted by Lindas1st from New England on 11/29/09 at 04:14 PM ET

* turtle
* “make him pay”

Posted by Lindas1st from New England on 11/29/09 at 04:16 PM ET

The problem with lifting the instigator rule is that it wouldn’t really impact the problem, which is players having no respect for other players.

Sure, in an ideal world one can imagine a situation where without an instigator penalty an ‘enforcer’ would be able to jump on a tool like Cooke or Avery and beat him up… but as others have mentioned it’s not like those guys would fight legit heavyweights anyhow..  They’d tie up at best, and actively skate away at worst.

People already think those guys are dickweeds.  Them running from fights isn’t going to impact that.

In reality, what would happen without an instigator rule is that these jerks like Avery and Cooke would try and jump the other teams stars and try and get them run for 5 minutes.  That’s a trade a team would take any day of the week: they send a thug out to either drop Crosby immediately and injure him, or get him kicked out for a fighting major for 5 minutes.  Either way, that’s a win.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 11/29/09 at 06:03 PM ET

I don’t think dropping the instigator rule would allow NHL games to devolve into lawless saloon brawls.  A well-defined suspension policy would be critical in making sure that it wouldn’t at least.

Of course, a well-defined suspension policy* would also help severely limit the effectiveness of cheap-shotting goons like Avery and Cooke, making instigators less likely to be needed anyway…

I think a stronger NHLPA would help getting a well-defined suspension policy put in place too, but that’s a theory for another discussion entirely..

*if you haven’t seen the Down Goes Brown suspension flowchart by now, shame on you.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 11/29/09 at 06:26 PM ET

Stars like Ovechkin& even the Greatest Leader in the History of the World Mike Richards don’t get suspended

But guys Like Cooke & Kaleta do

Posted by Evilpens on 11/29/09 at 08:55 PM ET

I just saw it.  No worse than Richards’s hit.  Doesn’t warrant a suspension.  No where near his head.

Posted by stoneman from vegas on 11/29/09 at 09:29 PM ET

clearly evilpens is a moron who knows very little about hockey.  just wanted to point that out.

what you need to grasp, dufus, is that players leave their feet a lot AFTER the collisions.  not before.  this is not against the rules, nor dirty in any way.  as Pronger would like to say, it’s just physics.

anyway….yes the instigator rule needs to go away.  Mickey Redmond has been preaching this for years.  in fact, he makes a great point - if players didn’t have helmets and all the modern protective gear, there would be FEWER cheap shots and injuries…not more.  why?  because players would RESPECT the fact that they are all vulnerable.  it’s psychological.

Posted by PaulinMiamiBeach on 11/30/09 at 11:10 AM ET

The problem with lifting the instigator rule is that it wouldn’t really impact the problem, which is players having no respect for other players.

then somebody would beat some respect into them.

Sure, in an ideal world one can imagine a situation where without an instigator penalty an ‘enforcer’ would be able to jump on a tool like Cooke or Avery and beat him up… but as others have mentioned it’s not like those guys would fight legit heavyweights anyhow.. 

so they don’t have to fight, they can just stand there and take a beating…or turtle like Claude Lemieux and be laughed at for the rest of their career.  in fact, that’s a perfect example - do you think Claude Lemieux would ever board someone again like he did to Draper?  nope.  which do you think he remembers more, the hit itself or McCarty beating the snot out of him?

Posted by PaulinMiamiBeach on 11/30/09 at 11:13 AM ET

because players would RESPECT the fact that they are all vulnerable.  it’s psychological.

Players are vulnerable now, you know.  How’s that working out so far?  I don’t think making a player more vulnerable really accomplishes anything but make the dirty hit something that could make injuries longer and more severe.

so they don’t have to fight, they can just stand there and take a beating

I don’t think that would happen, either.  Again, it’s not like these kind of dangerous and irresponsible hits just started happening the day after the instigator penalty was instituted.  As a Wings fan, it’s pretty tough to make a case for Kirk Maltby being anything but a similar (but not identical) shit-stirrer for the first 8 years of his career.

Again, play out the situation.  Absent an instigator rule, what is the more likely occurance: that guys like Avery will be less of a danger, or that they will become more of a danger because now they can try and fight (or just plain old mug) elite players in an attempt to get matching fighting majors?

It seems incredibly obvious to me.

If the actual intent was to limit these kinds of cheapshots, the league could get rid of this problem in one day.  All they would have to do is start aggressively and consistently suspending players who hit players in a vulnerable position, or who continually make dirty plays.

At some point if the punishments are significant and consistent enough, it’s going to start getting guys pulling up rather than trying to finsih every check regardless of situation and position.

And that’s the problem.  The NHL is run by idiots, so they are never going to take this kind of situation seriously.  It doesn’t directly impact the bottom line (at least not yet), so until it does the league is going to look the other way.

Now, once a dirty hit takes out Crosby, Malkin or Ovechkin for three months… then a real sea change will occur in how the NHL looks at that kind of behavior.  Until then?  Not a chance.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 11/30/09 at 12:26 PM ET