If you’re a hockey fan, you’re used to controversial hits. They happen every night. If you really wanted to, you could spend all day, every day, all season long doing nothing but watching videos of borderline thwacking and fighting with people on the internet about whether they were dirty or not.
But in last Monday’s Hawks-Oilers game, fans were treated to a rarer spectacle: a controversial non-hit. Nail Yakupov got the puck in the D-zone along the boards. Daniel Carcillo lined him up from the circle. Yakupov dished the puck up towards the blue line. Carcillo decided to finish his check. Yakupov turned back towards the corner and ducked. Carcillo launched himself, somewhat comically, into brainless glass. And, at the next whistle, commentator Eddie Olczyk freaked out.
If you are Nail Yakupov of the Edmonton Oilers, you cannot do that to a player that’s coming. That’s a dangerous play by Nail Yakupov, because what happens is, when you duck like that, that player is going to go over the top of your shoulder and hit his face or his neck against the boards. To me, that should be a penalty on Yakupov. I see it at the amateur level; I’d like to see USA Hockey and amateur referees take control of that type of play. I hope it’s not being taught by coaches, but that’s a dangerous play. Somebody’s going to get really hurt when a player ducks like that.
Olczyk is right that Yakupov’s decision to duck is potentially dangerous for Carcillo. If Carcillo is moving a little faster, if Yakupov is a little further off the boards, if the seconds and inches go wrong, Carcillo’s head could have hit that glass in a most icky way. Someone could surely have been hurt.
