SENShobo
How One Could Defend Ruutu
by SENShobo on 11/13/08 at 11:36 AM ET
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Tonight, Ruutu will start a two-game suspension for elbowing Montreal’s Lapierre in Tuesday’s game.
Covered everywhere, the hit has almost universally been panned and attacked. Not one person on TSN’s panel thought the suspension was inappropriate, and it’s almost unequivocally suggested that it’s exactly the kind of move you’d expect from Ruutu, a player who’s never been before the League before in any hearings, let alone been suspended; after all, he’s paid to be a pest and to draw penalties, not to take stupid and unnecessary ones.
Not that you’d expect any less from me, or that you can’t already tell, but I’m going to step away from the mainstream opinions and attempt to defend Ruutu in this instance, because absent any history of suspensions for Ruutu or conflicts with Lapierre, all you can do in this case is try to interpret what you see.
What can I see in the footage Paul posted?
In the first 7 seconds, I see Ruutu coming along between the red and blue lines, headed for the boards, where he sweeps around two players to hit Lapierre. To me, as the Senators were bringing the puck up, I see him as waiting at the blueline for the play to advance, looking avoiding an offside call (remember, the game before, being a hair offside disallowed his goal against Carolina). At that point, the Habs strip the Sens of the puck along the boards in the neutral zone, and he has to change plans, from offensive aspirations to physical ones, and tracks the puck en route to Lapierre, and hits him.
41 seconds in, I see Ruutu skating towards the boards, looking for the puck and finding it near Lapierre. At that point, Lapierre is skating in no unusual fashion. Then, Ruutu has to curve around both Ottawa’s Chris Kelly and Montreal’s Mathieu Dandenault to get to the puck, in a way often seen in hits happening at the net, where Sens fans will remember Eaves doing the same curve and finding himself unaware of Steve Downie’s approach and ensuing damaging hit to the head. Ruutu being in that position, I can see him losing a bit of his ability to focus perfectly on all aspects and details of his surroundings. As misfortune would have it, and as not one reporter has mentioned yet (that I’ve heard of), at that same moment, Lapierre suddenly finds himself fishing along the boards for the puck, stick extended fully, and his head nearly as low as his hips, his back being just short of horizontal over his bent legs.
51 seconds in, Ruutu’s got his arms together, coming in on Lapierre, looking poised for a hit. Maybe at that moment he’s noticing how low and vulnerable Lapierre is. Maybe (but doubtfully), he remembers how earlier in the game, teammate Jason Smith found himself in nearly the identical spot and vulnerable position of Van Ryn just one Montreal game ago. Maybe he remembers that unlike Kostopoulos crashing Van Ryn into the boards, it was in fact Lapierre who avoided destroying Smith, choosing instead to wipe him out on the boards, an injury-preventing move that TSN praised earlier in their broadcast.
Possibly remembering that, or merely having common sense, Ruutu changes plans, and instead of wheeling a shoulder into Lapierre’s face, he spreads his arms into what reminds me of a body-builder flex pose, possibly to change his potentially devastating attack into a mere bump (apparently it’s called a “Front Lat Flex”, one of the commonly required poses in bodybuilding competitions). Now, rewind a couple seconds, and you’ll notice that Lapierre’s pace slows down right before impact; that potentially turns what would have been a hug — and anyone who saw his affection for Crosby in Sweden knows what a caring player Ruutu is — into an elbow.
But who would be foolish enough to think that there could be a pest like Ruutu, a fan favourite everywhere he’s played, that actually cares about the welfare of his opponents? Clearly all this visual and factual evidence I see just isn’t worth a second thought. Maybe this is indeed part of the NHL trying to crack down on hits to the head, and that even though Ruutu may have suffered the consequences of all those unfortunate circumstances of the moment, and may have done all he could think of in that split second to avoid destroying Lapierre, contact with the head still deserves punishment. I can agree with that, if it will help stop the growing tide of concussions and tragically ended or temporarily suspended careers. Whether it’s Bell’s elbow and Alfie’s swinging head, or Ruutu’s elbow on Lapierre two days ago, or any other elbow-noggin nonsense, I will never support it or enjoy seeing it anywhere in the game.
Maybe what I’m seeing in this incident is why it was only two games Ruutu received, instead of the five or more the TSN panelists were calling for, and I’ll take a wild guess and say that they weren’t the only ones. If that’s the case — or even regardless of the case — it would be nice if the League would explain itself, its logic, its rulings. It does that now, in having referees state why goals under review get allowed or disallowed, giving some answers to whichever team and its fans dislike the ruling. Why not do that now, in more detail and more publicly, help quell some of this debate, and any assumptions and misunderstandings that undoubtedly exist, whichever side they’re on? There’s no such thing as bad press, I suppose.
Filed in: NHL Rules, NHL Teams, Ottawa Senators | SENShobo | Permalink
Tags: Jarkko+Ruutu,
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