Hard to get much of a reaction from the participants on Sunday’s third-period hit by Chicago forward Peter LeBlanc on Caps forward Alex Semin. What appeared to be an elbow to the head at 12 minutes, 37 seconds of the third earned a five-minute major and a match penalty from the referee. But it also happened behind the play and all the way across the ice from the benches.
Semin stayed on the ice for several seconds and appeared shook up. But Washington trainer Greg Smith was never summoned and Semin tried to participate in the ensuing faceoff before being called off the ice and skating to the bench under his own power. Given all the fines and suspensions handed out by NHL discipline czar Brendan Shanahan this preseason you’d figure LeBlanc will get a phone call at the very least for a disciplinary hearing. The Blackhawks weren’t buying it – as to be expected.
“It wasn’t much of a hit,” Chicago coach Joel Quenneville told reporters afterwards. “Maybe they’re playing it cautious, but [Semin] was out there [and] he almost started the power play on the same penalty so I don’t think it was excessive.”
Caps coach Bruce Boudreau hadn’t seen a replay and also said the play was too far away to get an accurate sense of what happened. He was just glad Semin was okay. Defenseman Mike Green – no stranger to head shots after he took a shoulder to the jaw from New York Rangers forward Derek Stepan last February 25 – didn’t see the full play, either. But without specifically commenting on LeBlanc’s hit, Green is fine with Shanahan’s attempt to rid the sport of those types of plays.
“Absolutely. Any shots to the head we’ve been warned. Doesn’t matter the severity of it. It’ll be taken care of,” said Green, who took advantage of the major penalty by scoring a power-play goal at 16:49.
Entering the weekend, Shanahan, an NHL senior vice president, had suspended eight players, according to ESPN, for a total of 26 preseason games, 29 regular-season games and $666,186.89 in forfeited salary. That’s a lot of coin for a sport that hasn’t even started shooting live bullets yet. Green did acknowledge, however, that such focus will have casualties. That’s an inevitable byproduct of such discipline.
“You don’t intentionally do it at times. That’s what’s going to suck about it as a player that’s being suspended or taken action on,” Green said. “But they have to protect us…If they’re consistent and if they’re being fair then it’ll work. Otherwise, if there’s this gray zone nobody’s going to know what to do and it’s still going to keep happening.”
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