Nick Piccone
The NHL announced yesterday that Pierre-Édouard Bellemare will be suspended for tonight’s Game 4 after this hit slight shove to the back of Dmitry Orlov on Monday night.
The end result looks terrible. And Bellemare isn’t known for this type of thing. So what happened?
Well, the more I look at it, the more I see what Ron Hextall was saying. On the hitshove, Hextall said Orlov bears some responsibility.
This isn’t me being a homer, but I think Hextall has a point. Hextall said after watching the replay “50 times, over and over and over,” he’s conflicted. And now, so am I. But the NHL suspended Bellemare for one game, and Hextall doesn’t agree.
Hextall disagreed, and voiced as much ahead of the conference call with the league’s Department of Player Safety.
“If you watch this really closely, Pierre-Edouard is going in on the forecheck to battle hard for the puck,” Hextall explained. “He’s got one hand on the stick. There’s no cross-check. There’s no nothing.
“If you look closely, there’s no force that he applies. What happened was, Orlov stops, or put on the brakes, and Belly’s momentum goes into him and propels him into the boards. So, it’s that Belly’s responsibility, or is it the defenceman’s responsibility?
“What do you do when a guy slams on the brakes and lowers his body and is propelled into the boards? Again, is it Belly’s fault or is it the defenceman’s fault? Everyone is different. We all know Belly rubs [players] out [on the boards], but he doesn’t hit hard. There is no intent on his part to hurt this player.
“My opinion is that it’s not Belly’s fault … and I’ve watched it 50 times, over and over and over.”
I’ve watched it 50 times over and over and over, too, and now I see what Hextall sees. In real time, it looks devastating. But Bellemare isn’t a dirty player and he isn’t known to intend to injure others. He clearly wasn’t trying to injure Orlov. Luckily, Orlov was OK, but Bellemare being suspended for one game because of that is a little suspect.
Not that it matters, anyway. Should the Flyers win tonight, it’s just going to prolong the inevitable.