Chris Kreider Will Not Face Discipline For Hit on Jonas Brodin

There will be no supplemental discipline for New York Rangers forward Chris Kreider after he received a five-minute boarding penalty and a game misconduct in Monday’s game against the Wild in Madison Square Garden.

The hit took place on the Wild’s Jonas Brodin as both were chasing a dump behind the net. Watch the replay here:

While some have questioned whether or not the game misconduct was warranted, I believe it was. Brodin does brace himself for a hit and slows down far enough from the boards that only really getting pushed hard from behind will result in him be flung into the boards head first. It’s also on the hitter to not hit a defenseless player. If you see their numbers, don’t hit them.

Brodin also bears responsibility to make sure he does put himself in a defenseless position. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here. They’re chasing the puck and Brodin’s back is to Kreider long enough that Brodin’s back shouldn’t be a surprise to Kreider. In fact, it looks like Kreider uses his arms and shoulder to explode into Brodin’s back

The game misconduct, which was given in addition to five minutes for boarding, falls under NHL Rule 41.5:

When a major penalty is imposed under this rule for a foul resulting in an injury to the face or head of an opponent, a game misconduct shall be imposed.

Working in Kreider’s favor here is that there doesn’t appear to be, at the moment, any serious or lasting injury to Brodin from the hit.

My problem with the lack of hearing is that the NHL is regularly banging their drum about how much the care about player safety. This exact hit could have easily caused serious injury if it happened again. In Kreider you’ve got a young player who isn’t necessarily dirty, but takes risks and doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the safety of other players at times (see his run-in with Carey Price in the 2014 playoffs…not necessarily terrible or malicious, but careless). If the NHL really wants to protect players it has to discipline players who take the health of other players for granted and push through, like Krieder did, on a check that could result in head or neck injury. I’m certainly not calling for Kreider’s head and I don’t think he’s a dirty player, but I think at a time when the league is saying they’re taking a stand for player safety more than ever, that these kind of hits don’t really have a place.

For a really great analysis of the situation you should head over to Blue Shirt Banter and read Mike Murphy’s piece on the hit.

(Also still laughing at the MSG announcers who repeatedly asserted that Brodin tripped over Marco Scandella’s skates and that this was a bad call.)