Tampa’s Raddysh avoids penalty for heavy hit on Bruins’ Koepke
The Boston Bruins were already banged up heading into Tuesday’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Unfortunately, they may be dealing with more injury troubles, due to a physical play from the opposition.
Lightning defenseman Darren Raddysh clobbered the Bruins’ Cole Koepke with an open-ice hit during the third period of Boston’s 6-2 win on Tuesday night at TD Garden, and ended up avoiding a penalty for the play. Koepke remained down for minutes after the whistle and needed help getting off the ice. As of Wednesday morning, Koepke was not spotted at practice at Warrior Ice Arena (via Andrew Fantucchio).
But the hit itself became the story. The officials reviewed the play for a possible major penalty, then deemed that there was no penalty at all. Much to the chagrin of many, which is to be expected when the Bruins were on the receiving end of the thing.
Raddysh certainly catches a lot of Koepke’s head on the hit. However, he’s all shoulder, which often results in perfectly clean hits, and Koepke put himself in something of a vulnerable position by leaning forward and reaching for the puck as he skated up the ice. It’s easy to put yourself on the train tracks when you’re in that position. It’s hard for anyone to argue that head contact was avoidable, here, other than just peeling away and not hitting him. That’s not a reasonable ask.
Watch the replays and judge for yourself:
Ultimately, it doesn’t look like Raddysh had any malicious intent on the hit. He definitely wanted to deliver a hard check and make Koepke feel it, but the officials weren’t out of line to determine that the head contact was more incidental than intentional.
Here’s the problem: the NHL’s Department of Player Safety has long wanted to eliminate hits in which the “principal point of contact” is the head. This decision shows that they’re still OK with some forms of head contact and the head injuries that may result from it. All that most of us ask is for consistency when it comes to how they adjudicate these plays. Letting Raddysh off completely scot-free is to signal to Bruins fans that hits to the head are acceptable.
As of noon on Wednesday, there’s no injury update on Koepke, nor is there anything from Player Safety. It remains to be seen if anything else will come from this.
Matt Dolloff is a writer and digital content producer for 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read all of his articles here.
