During the winning goal in Sunday's Game 1, Devils goalie Martin Brodeur had his stick moved by Flyers winger James van Riemsdyk's skate, hindering his ability to make the save. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

After watching these unpredictable and bizarre Stanley Cup playoffs unfold through the weekend, one thing is certain: the numerous incidents involving the question of goaltender interference demands that the NHL rethink adding it to the league’s list of goal/no-goal calls that are reviewable via video.

UPDATE: On TSN Monday night, Darren Dreger reported the NHL GMs will discuss adding goaltender interference to the video review situations at their next meeting and predicted it would pass (video).

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Refs seem to have rediscovered the idea that sending a player to the box and leaving his team in a potentially costly penalty-kill is one of the best ways to curb on-ice mayhem. (Mark Goldman/Icon SMI)

Perhaps Wednesday will go down as the day the NHL regained some control over the Stanley Cup playoffs and did it in the most logical manner – having the referees call penalties rather than “let the boys play.”

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Blackhawks star Marian Hossa was hospitalized by a dangerous illegal headshot of the kind the NHL has been trying to eliminate, not a fight or a clean, hard check. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

What threatens to become the NHL’s Spring of Shame continued on Day 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs when Marian Hossa was stretchered off in the first period of the Coyotes-Blackhawks game on Tuesday night, the result of a clearly illegal but unpenalized hit by multiple offender Raffi Torres. It was the lasting image on another compelling night of playoff hockey and it overshadowed all else, just as each daily episode of brutal play has done.

This has to be viewed as a crisis for the NHL. The league was prepared to make this its greatest playoffs ever, especially in the U.S., with NBC and its family of channels pumping every game of every series into homes for the first time. But what will likely be remembered by its growing audience is not the best hockey of the year, but perhaps the most barbaric. Who knows what that will mean in the long run? More on that later.

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The on-ice call after Duncan Keith's elbow to the head of Daniel Sedin, an illegal shot that could change the course of the Western Conference playoff race, was unfortunately lax. (Warren Wimmer/Icon SMI)

Duncan Keith, the Blackhawks’ top defenseman, had a phone hearing with Brendan Shanahan on Friday for his elbow to the head of the Canucks’ Daniel Sedin, which concussed the Vancouver star and took him out of the lineup indefinitely. There’s widespread speculation that Keith will receive a relatively stiff suspension, since the league asked for an in-person hearing as opposed to over the phone. That’s the procedure the NHL uses when it believes the ban could exceed five games, although Keith waived his right to appear.

If he’s suspended, and it seems certain he will be, it will likely be for longer than the three games Shane Doan got for the elbow he threw at Jamie Benn earlier this week.

UPDATE: Keith received a five-game suspension from the NHL.

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Restricting a goaltender's ability to play the puck has amounted to mere punishment for having the skill. (Andy Marlin/NHLI via Getty Images)

On Thursday, we discussed the upcoming GMs meeting and the proposal by some to at least discuss restoring the two-line offside pass in the name of increased player safety. There are other items on the agenda at their Boca Raton, Florida gathering that starts on Monday, and while nothing cataclysmic is expected to come out of their deliberations — at least nothing as historic as the proposal of what became Rule 48 two years ago, as well as the strengthening of that rule and new concern for a safer game last year — some interesting tweaks will certainly get an airing.

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This fracas led to P.K. Subban (bottom) being targeted by a remark that was perceived as racist by the referee who heard it. (Doug Murray/Reuters)

The NHL suspended Florida forward Krys Barch for the game the Panthers played Thursday night against the Rangers — and, yes, I am very weary of writing about suspensions, but this one is a bit different.

The reason for the one-gamer was Barch’s use of “inappropriate language” during his team’s game against Montreal in a now-traditional New Year’s Eve afternoon contest. It was an unusual transgression and the whole incident remains murky, which is too bad, because the NHL could have turned it into a valuable, teachable moment or clearly exonerated a player who was wrongly accused of making a racist remark.

Let’s briefly run through the event as best we can. With 1.2 seconds left in a first period that had gotten feisty, there was a face-off in the Florida zone to the right of goalie Jose Theodore. The puck was dropped and Habs defenseman P.K. Subban, who had lined up in the left face-off circle, charged the net in hope of creating some havoc, if not to knock the puck past Theodore.

The puck went harmlessly in another direction, however, and Subban ended up bumping with Panthers defenseman Erik Gudbranson at the top of the crease. The buzzer sounded, Gudbranson slashed at Subban’s stick, and Subban shoved him with a forearm. Gudbranson then threw his arm around Subban’s neck and wrestled him to his knees as players from both teams, and the linesmen, began to converge.

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Many fans outside Boston don't buy Milan Lucic's claim that he couldn't avoid colliding with Ryan Miller. (Fred Kfoury/Icon SMI)

If the Brendan Shanahan era was the dawning of a new day in NHL player safety, some clouds obscured the sun on Monday when he found no reason to take further action against the Bruins’ Milan Lucic, who freight-trained Sabres goalie Ryan Miller on Saturday.

It was a decision that felt like a product of the old Colin Campbell era.

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Isn’t that video above terrific? On Wednesday night, Tampa Bay’s 1-3-1 defense against Philadelphia forced Mike Milbury to storm off the set in Versus’s studio during the second intermission, and that’s reason enough for us to nominate the Lightning’s Guy Boucher as not just NHL Coach of Year, but also for the The George Foster Peabody Award for distinguished and meritorious public service to television.

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No ban for Francois Beauchemin for his hit on Mike Fisher was one of the NHL's recent vexing decisions. (Mark Humphrey/AP)

In the first regular season road test of the expanded Rule 48 on hits to the head, the NHL cruised through any obstacles and arrived at a solid ruling: the Oilers’ Andy Sutton was handed a five-game suspension Tuesday by the NHL for a hit to the head of Avalanche rookie Gabriel Landeskog in a game last Friday.

This would not have been a suspension last season. It would have been considered a legal north-south hit, non-penalized and not suspendable. In the battle against head injuries, the new Rule 48 shows a flexibility not often attributed to the NHL and those responsible for crafting it, the league’s general managers. They recognized the shortcomings of their initial Rule 48 and improved it.

Yesterday, we looked at some of the more puzzling decisions by the league’s Department of Player Safety on boarding and hits from behind, wondering if they haven’t been too soft since the regular season began, especially in light of the tough suspensions that were handed down during the preseason. Today, we’ll look at some other rulings it has made.
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