Dustin Byfuglien and Alex Burrows couldn’t have taken more divergent paths to the offices of the Department of Player Safety.
Burrows may be more familiar with the route, but Byfuglien surely stepped to the front of the line Tuesday, as both players tested the process with potentially injurious plays.
Byfuglien’s crosscheck to the neck of J.T. Miller will mark his first ever suspension, a violent act where the Jets defenceman clearly took leave of his senses for a moment. “Violent. Deliberate. Could have broken his neck,” said New York Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault, Burrows’ old coach. “One of the most vicious crosschecks I’ve seen this year.”
Burrows, meanwhile, laid a calculated, barely-outside-the-rules hit on Nashville’s Paul Gaustad later Tuesday evening. The Canucks winger has made a career of pushing officials’ split second judgment to the brink, and as usual, Gaustad had barely touched the ice when Burrows had his palms to the sky, the universal sign of a player who knew he’d done wrong and had to yard out that tired, old “Who? Me?” act that Burrows plies better than most.
Burrows will escape suspension — until the next sneaky dirty play, of course. But Byfuglien? Well, he’s left his team in a fix.
Of all the teams in that little cluster of Western Conference hopefuls — Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary and Los Angeles — the Jets have for some time seemed like the safest of the bunch. Now they are blowing games deep in the third period, while no deficit seems insurmountable for the Flames and Canucks.
I’m saying three games for Byfuglien, but really, nobody I’ve ever met has a record of success in predicting the actions of the NHL’s Department of Player Safety. That’s not a shot at the DPS, just an admission that the process has so many layers, there is just no money in trying to handicap it from outside the walls of V.P. Stephane Quintal’s office.
Byfuglien gave us an example of the sort of act that was once a common occurrence in hockey, but today is unilaterally accepted as out of bounds in the sport. It was as reckless as it was foolish, as dangerous as it was dumb. Sure, Miller had swung at a puck and whacked Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec just seconds before. That won’t carry any water, nor should it.
If I were Quintal, Byfuglien’s next game would either be Game 1 of the playoffs, or Game 1 next October. But with no history of being suspended and only three fines on his record, a three-game ban for Byfuglien would historically be considered quite punitive as a first offence.
Byfuglien’s phone hearing guarantees any potential suspension will not exceed five games.
And don’t expect to hear from Byfuglien any time soon. He only likes to talk to the fans when times are good. But he’ll have some explaining to do if the Jets can’t cope without him, the way the Flames have moved on without their best player, Mark Giordano.
The Jets are as fragile as a snowflake these days, and will likely be out of a playoff spot when their next game begins Saturday afternoon at the MTS Centre against Vancouver. The Jets’ season will be defined by how they react to this — but if Calgary can soldier on, so can Winnipeg. This doesn’t have to catastrophic.
Meanwhile, the oft-suspended Alex Burrows escaped supplementary discipline for his “accidently on purpose” hit on an unsuspecting Gaustad. To these eyes, it was no more than a two-minute penalty for interference at the time, though Burrows was handed a five-minute major. But watch the replay a few times, and you could talk yourself into thinking suspension, as I did the morning after.
In the end, we suspect the NHL’s opinion was that Gaustad sold the hit. That’s not to say it wasn’t a cheap shot at an unsuspecting player. It just wasn’t as injurious as the replays made it look.
As for Burrows, we’ve always maintained that he has too much game for these antics. Why can’t he just play hockey, like most everyone else? But somewhere in his DNA, Burrows must constantly stir the pot. He simply has to push the envelope with the officials, testing them nightly on call after call.
Clearly, when in doubt the zebras rule against him. Because his reputation states that he’s probably trying to pull a fast one.
A Canucks fan may say it’s wrong. A hockey fan knows it is reality.
Bait the refs for your entire career, and you’ll never get the benefit of the doubt.
Only Canucks fans and certain Vancouver media have sympathy for Burrows. The rest of hockey is just tired of his act, simply shrugging their shoulders when Burrows gets the extra two minutes, or fails to draw a penalty.
Unlike Byfuglien, Burrows has been crying wolf in one way or another for his entire career. His reputation earns Burrows every break he doesn’t get.
Byfuglien? He doesn’t leave any room for doubt.
He’s only lucky enough to limit his absence to less than five games.
