For those that missed it last night, there was an incident during the game where Joffrey Lupul tried to throw an elbow in Henrik Sedin’s face, missed, and ended up taking out his own team mate, Nazem Kadri, instead.

Funnily enough CBC didn’t mention this elbow attempt, nor was a replay ever shown. Had this been in the age before social media, it most likely would have seemed like it never happened, but alas, Twitter saw. Twitter sees everything. As a result of the internet’s long memory, we all got to watch as Lupul attempted to throw a cheap shot on Henrik Sedin, replayed countlessly on Vine posts and YouTube videos.

At first I did with this clip the same thing I do with all videos that involve players colliding comically; I giggled and watched as Lupul ran over his own team mate. Over and over again. Many many times. There is a humor element to the fact someone tried to take out a player from the other team only to take out his own guy instead, there just is.

Then I watched the clip for the 32nd time and I realized “wait a minute, that could have really hurt Henrik.”

And I don’t mean that in a facetious way, I honestly was so busy reveling in dastardly plans gone awry that I didn’t bother to think “what if Lupul landed that elbow?” The answer to that question is Henrik’s iron man streak could have been stopped quite quickly were it not for the fact Henrik is a wizard and can apparently see 360 degrees around him and possibly owns a unicorn, thus allowing him the ability to see the elbow coming.

Let me preface this by saying I have nothing against the Leafs. Honestly, I don’t. Some of my best friends are Leafs fans. Ok, wait, that sounds awful. Seriously though, I have nothing against them. They play in the East, the Canucks play in the West, the only time we run across each other is once a year, in which cases the ordeal is over in around 3 hours and we both go on our merry way, as if we just had the worlds most awkward blind date. There is simply no reason for me to hold a grudge against them at this point.

I am also not out to demand suspensions upon every other non-Canuck in the league. I am not trying to prove any point in a crusade to show that other teams need to be punished like the naughty little boys that they are so I can feel better about Kassian’s suspenion earlier this year.

What I do want to have on record is that I believe blatant attempts to hit the head should be suspendable. I don’t care if it was Lupul doing this or if it was Daniel Sedin on a path of revenge against Duncan Keith doing this, if you are caught trying to take someone’s head off and miss, you should still be punished. Why should an injury have to take place before a suspension is handed out? Funnily enough, they have a rule in place for refs to call during the game itself:

So let’s assume the refs missed the Lupul elbow. That doesn’t mean the NHL shouldn’t be suspending players after the fact. Let’s use hyperbole here, what if Henrik Sedin takes his stick, two hands a swing at Lupul’s face in retaliation, misses, and hits Daniel instead and the refs miss it. Do we all sit back and laugh as the two Sedins go “awww shucks” and start picking up Daniel’s teeth from the ice? Or should the NHL hand out a suspension for an attempt to injure? They should probably hand out a suspension to discourage that sort of thinking. It doesn’t make sense that someone would have to potentially concuss another player before they get suspended, yet they can attempt it as many times as they want without risk, until they connect. It’s like telling a player “Well you can try and hit him in the face with that elbow, but we’re only going to punish you if you connect with it, so take as many practice swings as you’d like.”

Throwing an elbow to a players head is not a hockey play. It has not been a hockey play ever since they stopped glorifying Gordie Howe and Mark Messier for having “sharp elbows”. In today’s day and age when brain health is supposedly at the forefront of the NHL player mandate, it makes zero sense to not punish players for attempting illegal shots to the head. They in fact put in a rule specifically for head shots, though I guess technically it only covers head shots that connect.

I have no idea if the NHL plans at looking at the Lupul elbow, or if the Canucks even plan on pursuing that route, but at the end of the day, I hope that they do. As I said, if a Canuck had thrown an elbow like this, I would expect the other team to look for a suspension and I would have no problem with it. Even those most ardent Leafs fans have to admit that Lupul has very few good intentions in mind with that elbow.

In a perfect world the NHL would hand out a token one or two game suspension, so that way it would be on the players official record. This way, any time the player moved they would have to register as an elbow offender and would therefore have the possibility of having a larger suspension hanging over their head should they ever do it again.

Then again, the NHL has never made very much sense, so maybe Henrik Sedin will get suspended for owning an unlicensed unicorn. Stranger things have happened. Even stranger still, the NHL might actually suspend Lupul? We shall see what happens.

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