Stop the presses! There is actually one serious commentator who thinks NHL got it right on Pietrangelo suspension

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Stop the presses! There is actually one serious commentator who thinks NHL got it right on Alex Pietrangelo suspension.

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NHL Player Safety gave Pietrangelo a one-game suspension for attempting to hack off Leon Draisaitl’s arm at the elbow with a two-handed samurai chop.

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After a thorough search, I’ve finally found one credible observer of the game who thinks the NHL made the correct call.

Hockey’s heavyweight panel of NHL commentators has Kevin Bieksa, the game’s most insightful analyst (tied with Ray Ferraro), along with long-time NHL coach Dallas Eakins and talkative Kelly Hrudey on Sportsnet.

It was Eakins who backed the NHL’s call.

“I think the league did get it right,” Eakins said. “I said before: one game. I think I’m right.”

At that point, Bieksa started to laugh and took a small verbal jab at Eakins, who was just fired in Anaheim. “The league is not hiring right now. Before you answer this. It’s not hiring.”

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Eakins didn’t buy the complaint that Pietrangelo deserved more than one game after Darnell Nurse got a game for instigating a fight with willing combatant Nicolas Hague in the last minute of Game Four.

“To me they are totally separate things,” Eakins said. “One thing has nothing to do with the other. The one is the instigator, it’s in the rule book. That’s the call. The other is a slash… The slash looks terrible. I don’t like it in our game. But I think the thing that really helped Las Vegas here was the beast Draisaitl was not hurt. He got up. He was giving it to the bench on the way by. The guy is a real battling player. And I think they take all of that account.”

Bieksa agreed with the Nurse suspension, saying it was a clear instigator call. “But Draisaitl means three strings in German. I thought he lost three fingers with that slash. That was a vicious lash.”

Hrudey said it deserved three games. “He stalked him. He goes right after him. That is two seconds after the Draisaitl backhand pass. There’s no room for it in our game. It’s vicious. It looks ugly. It doesn’t make our game look very good.”

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My take

On the one hand with have Eakins backing the NHL.

Going against the NHL’s call?

Well, let’s see.

It’s pretty much every other credible commentator!

There Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, who thinks Pietrangelo needed a two-game suspension.

There’s Youtube star Steve Dangle and TSN’s Craig Button.

There’s Pittsburgh sports commentator Mark Madden, Montreal’s Jack Todd, Pittsburgh sports columnist Dejan Kovacevic and Kyle Keefe, TV anchor for the Colorado Avalanche. It’s Atanta-based Scott Burnside and Winnipeg’s Mike McIntyre.

There’s big gun Spittin’ Chiclets podcaster Ryan Whitney and the popular hockey commentator Pete Blackburn.

There’s me, Bruce McCurdy and Kurt Leavins at the Cult of Hockey. Jim Matheson at the Journal. Bob Stauffer on Oilers Now and Brenden Escott of Oilers Now. There’s the legendary Terry Jones.

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Writers Dom Luszczyszyn of Harman Dayal of The Athletic and even ESPN Greg Wyshynski.

So there’s that.

Could it be Eakins also has some loyalty to the Peterborough mafia that runs the hockey side of the NHL? To Colin Campbell and Kris King, a former teammate in Peterborough?

King is the NHL’s senior VP of hockey ops. Campbell is director of hockey ops.

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