Per Puck Daddy:
The reason to get outraged over Joe Thornton’s 2-game suspension for his hit to the head of St. Louis Blues forward David Perron last night is that Perron wasn’t injured; hell, he scored a goal less than 10 minutes later in the 2-0 Blues win.
That lack of injury, a lack of intent, and the impact of kicking the captain out of a huge conference game for the San Jose Sharks made us think there wouldn’t be any supplemental discipline. Little did we know the NHL was continuing the education process for Rule 48, and thus had to suspended Thornton today.
As a refresher, the second-period hit in the neutral zone that cost the Sharks Thornton for nearly 2-and-a-half games (keep in mind Mike Murphy, rather than Colin Campbell, did the legwork on the decision, per Strickland):
The NHL is still making statements, still making examples so these players understand what it is Rule 48 is trying to eliminate from the game. A glancing blow to the head of a player in the neutral zone when he’s not expecting it is, apparently, top of the charts. So Thornton is a 6-foot-4 billboard on what not to do that’ll imprint on the memory more than any preseason DVD will.
It’s the same thing they did with Shane Doan of the Phoenix Coyotes, the other high-profile captain suspended under the head-shot rule. As we said at the time of his 3-game ban:
This is a statement to the players, as loud as any the League has made this season: Even the seemingly benign blindside hits are on the radar. The game has changed.
And so it has. So Thornton’s agent will consider an appeal (via Dreger) and the Sharks and their fans will get all sorts of pissed off that this was a suspension rather than a fine, like the one Nick Foligno received for basically doing the same thing Thornton did.
Logically, they’re right: This should have been a fine at worst, or simply left as an in-game penalty. But logic has no home in these decisions, because they’re all for show at the moment, until the NHL is convinced the message about Rule 48 has been drilled into their players’ heads.