have any of these players learned what happen from Bergeron yet?

Posted by FlyersFan on 01/22/08 at 08:27 PM ET

No they haven’t. Never will. Ever here Messier talk about hitting from behind? Ol Messier figures it shouldn’t be a penalty. OH THE OUTRAGE.

His angle is that with a hitting from behind rule in place players assume they won’t get hit from behind. Heck sometimes, like Rozsival in this case the player will go so far as to shield the puck with his body.

Take the rule away and a player will never put himself in that position. Messier’s word ‘before the hitting from behind rule if you went in the corner your head was on a swivel’.

I agree with Mess on this one. Hits like this particular one are already covered in the rules. Take your pick, charging or boarding if need be.

Posted by Ryan Lake from da puddle on 01/22/08 at 09:58 PM ET

I think Rozsival was an idiot.  He had his head down with his back to everyone else.  What does he expect is going to happen?  Sure, protect the puck but don’t be a moron and turn your back to your opponents.  The only sport that makes sense in is basketball. 

“Hey, there’s hitting in this game…what a surprise!  I didn’t think someone would try to hit me off the puck”!  Grow some smarts.

Posted by Matt Fry from Winnipeg on 01/23/08 at 11:23 AM ET

FlyersFan -

You and I disagree on a lot of things, but I’ve been a staunch believer that Randy Jone’s incident didn’t fit the profile of the other similar incidents because Bergeron knowingly PUT himself in the position to be injured.  You can’t shield the puck with your body near the boards… you just can’t.

I didn’t get good looks at the Kovalchuk hit last night, but it looked much like the same thing (although Ilya hit more-forcibly than Jones did, which doesn’t help his case).

That’s the one problem with this—how do you penalize/punish players for abusing the rule by turning their back to leave themselves exposed?  Because that’s abuse of a rule…

Posted by Primis from Michigan on 01/23/08 at 11:27 AM ET

In this case Ilya left his feet. That’s charging. No way the recipient should have put him self in that position though.

Posted by Ryan from BC on 01/23/08 at 11:30 AM ET

Ilya is frustrated because the Thrashers goalies suck almost as bad as their defensemen suck. Don Waddell, please trade Ilya to Detroit. Russians look best in red.

Posted by Vodka Mussorgsky from Moscow on 01/23/08 at 03:11 PM ET

what no one is mentioning about what happened is that about 10 seconds earlier, Ilya had given Rosival a borderline elbow.  And in the words of someone at the game, nothing, than all of a sudden a big bang…when describing the hit

Posted by bsalamon on 01/23/08 at 04:11 PM ET