Matt Cooke Deserves the Max, Gets Much Less From Inconsistent NHL

It's been almost a year since Matt Cooke's ugly, blind-side hit on Boston's Marc Savard changed the way the league looks at dirty hits.

At the time, the NHL incomprehensibly backpedaled. They chose not to suspend Cooke, citing the fact that the hit on Savard was technically not against anything in the rulebook.

(Apparently, the rules on "intent to injure" didn't apply.)

After Cooke's hit, CBC commentator Don Cherry blasted Cooke and the league, saying the Pittsburgh forward had a history of trying to injure opponents, and it was time for someone to put a stop to it.

Judging by his body of work this season, Cooke didn't care about what Cherry had to say, and he certainly hasn't done anything to clean up his act.

Sunday, while much of Pittsburgh was preparing for the Super Bowl, the Penguins lost 3-0 at Washington. Late in the game, Cooke happened to bump knees with some guy named Alex Ovechkin.



The NHL watched one of their star players take a knee-on-knee hit from a repeat offender, and did nothing. The worst part is that no one was surprised, especially when they saw Ovechkin get back up and not have to be taken off the ice on a stretcher.

(Then again, Savard needed a stretcher, and it's not like that influenced anybody.)

In a way, the league was asking for what it got Tuesday night, when Cooke slammed Columbus defenseman Fedor Tyutin into the boards from behind.



Tyutin wasn't hurt, so the NHL only suspended Cooke four games.

This is a huge part of the problem. As pointed out by Michael Hurley, Cooke has been suspended three times in his career. Each previous suspension was for two games. Contrast that to Daniel Paille, who got four games for a lateral headshot on Raymond Sawada of Dallas. Paille had no history of dirty play, and the league decided to give him the same suspension they gave a repeat offender who just happened to get lucky and not cause serious injury, despite the fact that you could argue he tried to do that twice in 48 hours.

The matter isn't helped at all when Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma gets to put his two cents in.

"(Tyutin) makes sure that he keeps his numbers (on the back of the jersey) toward him," Bylsma said. "Matt Cooke did hit him there and sent him into the boards."

In other words, Tyutin asked for Cooke to blast him in the back.

It's a brilliant way for the coach to defend the player, but all it really does is make Bylsma sound like an idiot. He's stuck, in this case, because he's a bus-chucker if he says anything negative about Cooke. That's unfortunate, but it's reality.

Coaches refusing to speak the truth is a huge issue only if Bylsma says the same things behind closed doors. Then, he's simply encouraging Cooke to keep up what he's doing.

This suspension is living proof that the NHL doesn't get it. The league continues to respond to injuries that are the result of illegal hits, not the hits themselves.

Tyutin wasn't hurt, so Cooke doesn't get the book thrown at him. David Perron didn't look to be seriously hurt when he took an illegal hit from Joe Thornton, but he hasn't played since. Do you think the NHL would have simply suspended Thornton two games had they known Perron would be out this long?

It's the Catch-22 of the NHL's current philosophy, which leans toward punishing to the extent of the injury and not the rules violation. Until that changes, we'll continue to see non-sensical suspensions.

You know, like a guy with Cooke's track record getting four games, two days after getting off scot-free for a knee-on-knee hit on national television.