Should Niklas Kronwall be suspended? NHL calls for hearing on hit
Despite being one of the NHL’s most frequently devastating hitters, Niklas Kronwall of the Detroit Red Wings has never been suspended.
There’s a chance that streak could be broken at the most critical time of the season for the Wings.
Kronwall will have a hearing on Tuesday afternoon with the NHL Department of Player Safety, after his leaping hit on Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov near the end of the second period of Monday’s Game 6.
Kucherov skated to up the right wing boards and was slightly crouched when Kronwall skated into him – a high-impact hit on which Kronwall appeared to leave his skates and make contact with Kucherov’s head.
Kucherov didn’t appear to be injured on the play, and skated a regular shift in the third period in the Lightning’s 5-2 win. Kronwall wasn’t penalized on the play, quite hilariously.
Kronwall defended the hit after the game, via MLive.com:
“I haven’t seen it in replay so I can’t really say too much about it,” Kronwall said before adding, “I thought it was a clean hit at the time.”
… Kronwall, who became well-known for big hits early in his 11-year career with the Red Wings, was not penalized on the play but admitted he might have left his feet after hitting Kucherov. “Yeah, usually when you go, the impact itself carries you up,” he said.
Henrik Zetterberg called it “a clean, hard hit and he had good timing there.”
The NHL’s announcement notes that the hearing is for “charging/illegal check to the head,” which doesn’t bode well for Kronwall, as they clearly saw multiple issues with the hit. The NHL suspended nine players in the regular season for illegal hits to the head.
He’s played on the edge for years, successfully avoiding suspensions on some of his most famous “Kronwallings” of opposing players, like this one on Jakub Voracek of the Flyers in 2012:
The difference between this play and the one on Kucherov? Maybe distance traveled? Maybe he leaves his skates a bit earlier?
Here’s the thing: a hearing doesn’t guarantee a suspension. Given that Kucherov wasn’t injured on the play, based on how the Department of Player Safety has been recently ruling, there might not be a suspension. But don’t discount other factors, like whether Kronwall might have been warned about such hits during the season.
(While the fact this would take him out of a Game 7 shouldn’t matter, we all know it does.)
What do you think? Does Kronwall get a game or two for this hit, or does his record remain clean?
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