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how bad was Tuomo Ruutu's hit on Darcy Tucker?
i truly hope he recovers quickly.
but... was that hit really that brutal? maybe it was. i looked at highlights only on my little computer screen. did the refs decide the game misconduct because of the injury or the "viciousness" of the hit?
i don't disagree. i just couldn't see it very well on the camera angle that (cough) ESPN showed for the "high"lights. first, it was on that tiny screen that takes up only a portion of the website. then, the only angle they showed was the one showing the entire offensive zone.
i didn't see anything on how Darcy's body impacted the glass. no slow mo. ESPN continues to suck.
thanks.
The results certainly indicate it was vicious. It seems as if Ruutu did not hold up at all and really drove him into the boards. Tucker seems to have taken the brunt of the impact with his face and neck.
Just looking at the hit it did not look much worse than Kozlov's hit on Gomez thursday night. Gomez went down and took most of the impact on his shoulder much lower on the boards as a glancing blow. In this case Tucker took the impact straight on with the full weight of Ruutu's momentum behind him.
If we want to get these hits from behind out of the game I think we have to assess the game misconduct in all cases with or without injury. A 5 min penalty and a game may make the guy who has someone in a vulnerable position think twice.
In terms of the look of the hit, the Ruutu one did not look much more brutal than Kozlov's but the results were much worse. To get it out of the game we have to assess the max penalty regardless of the result and who is hitting. Ruutu has a bit of a rep but punishment should be applied equally be it Avery or crosby doing the drilling. The risk of serious neck/ spinal injury is too great to do otherwise.
On top of that I had just picked up Tucker in Fantasy hockey. The injury may have saved me from that mistake so I can make another one with his replacement.
Darcy Tucker hits Sami Kapanen & Jeremy Roenick goal