Why Hurricanes’ Hall won’t be suspended for hit on Senators’ Sanderson

The Ottawa Senators are angry.

Not only do they trail the Carolina Hurricanes 3-0 in their first-round Stanley Cup playoff matchup, but they may have to soldier on without their best all-around defenseman and perhaps player, Jake Sanderson. He left Thursday night’s game after taking a big hit from Hurricanes left winger Taylor Hall, and Sens coach Travis Green was incensed about it.

“It’s pretty obvious why he left the game,” Green told reporters Thursday night after Ottawa’s 2-1 home defeat. “I just don’t understand how there’s not a five-minute major called on a hit to the head. It’s a blatant hit to the head. The kind of hit you don’t want to see. It’s ridiculous there wasn’t a review.”

Hall received a two-minute minor for illegal check to the head on the play but, as hockey insider Frank Seravalli reported Friday morning, there won’t be supplemental discipline coming for Hall.

Why? Sorry, Senators fans, but the explanation is actually pretty simple here. All we have to do is brush up on the NHL’s Rule 48.1 for illegal check to the head – and make sure we read all the fine print.

As the rule states:

“A hit resulting in contact with an opponent’s head where the head was the main point of contact and such contact to the head was avoidable is not permitted.

“In determining whether contact with an opponent’s head was avoidable, the circumstances of the hit including the following shall be considered: (i) Whether the player attempted to hit squarely through the opponent’s body and the head was not “picked” as a result of poor timing, poor angle of approach, or unnecessary extension of the body upward or outward. (ii) Whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position by assuming a posture that made head contact on an otherwise full body check unavoidable. (iii) Whether the opponent materially changed the position of his body or head immediately prior to or simultaneously with the hit in a way that significantly contributed to the head contact.’

Going through the three sub-rules explains why Hall won’t be disciplined despite the fact Sanderson’s head is the principal point of contact.

(i): Hall’s skates are on the ice, he doesn’t extend an elbow to “pick” the head, and he throws the hit with his shoulder.

(ii) Sanderson does in fact reach for the puck and put himself in a vulnerable position right before the collision.

(iii) Hall doesn’t alter the position of his body to chase the head; he’s already in the midst of the hit attempt when Sanderson changes the angle of his head.

This angle does the play justice:

The hit thus isn’t a rule violation – or at least not a severe enough one to rise past the minor penalty. It doesn’t mean we have to like it – eliminating all head contact, even incidental, would be a lovely idea – but we do have to accept that the hit was clean according to the current NHL rulebook.

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