Jesse’s Observations
Andrew Cogliano
An ugly scene, that has only gotten worse since the initial play itself.
Meghan and I both felt this situation was significant enough that we both had something to say about it, so look out for her take on this whole situation down below.
I try really hard to not be someone that blames officiating, or points fingers. Hockey is easily the most difficult sport to officiate. The game happens so fast in real time, plays develop so quickly, and collisions occur in the blink of an eye. So I actually try to have a bit of understanding if a referee misses what we all think is an obvious call.
All of that said, even watching this sequence develop in real-time it felt like it was pretty clear that what Jordan Eberle had done something that was highly illegal.
Staring at Andrew Cogliano’s numbers and nameplate for 15’+, Eberle skated from the middle of the ice to the wall, and absolutely buried Cogliano head-first into the boards.
Textbook boarding, and an obvious hit from behind.
Coglinao stayed down for a significant amount of time before being helped up and gingerly skating to the bench and walking straight to the team dressing room.
A scuffle ensued on the ice, and when the dust settled Eberle was given just a two-minute minor for boarding. No five-minute major to allow for review, nothing. Two minutes, and he’s back in the game.
As much as I didn’t like the handling of this call in-game, I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, as I stated earlier. I tried to trust the process, and hope that the Department of Player Safety would function as the safe-guard and assess appropriate punishment where it was missed in real-time.
And for the sake of being fair… I thought that was exactly what happened earlier in the series with Cale Makar.
I know not everybody reading this will like it, but I thought Makar should have been suspended for that hit. Taking it a step further, I wouldn’t have had an issue with, or been surprised had they tossed him from Game 4.
So when they only gave him a two-minute minor in the moment, but he was later suspended for a game, that to me was the system functioning as it should: utilizing more information after the fact to make a more informed decision.
Well the next morning came and went, and word eventually came down that the league would not be taking any further action against Jordan Eberle beyond the two-minute penalty that was given to him during Game 5.
This is a massive failure, in my opinion.
It’s only later that we learned that Cogliano fractured his neck on the play, and has been ruled out indefinitely.
Curious about how DoPS would potentially handle the new injury-related information, I wanted to find out what their process actually is. So I asked around and here’s what I found out.
There’s essentially a multi-step process they follow when assessing whether or not to hand down supplemental discipline, and it’s not fully unlike a legal process.
Every game has a “spotter”, if you will, assigned to it. They watch every minute of every play, and their job is to flag anything that they see in that game that could potentially draw the attention of the DoPS.
Once they have a play that is worthy of a review…
The first question they ask is “Did something illegal happen in this play?”. If the answer is yes, the situation gets moved to the next box they’re looking to check.
“Is this play worthy of supplemental discipline?” is the next question asked. At that point, there’s something of a group discussion and debate to determine if they think the play warrants a suspension or a fine.
Only after that question has been asked and answered, do they begin to weigh things like injury, severity of injury, repeat offender, etc.
So apparently Cogliano’s injury wouldn’t have factored into the ruling, even had it been publicly available knowledge earlier.
Now look, usually these types of plays are pretty polarizing, with half of the people out there thinking it was a bad hit, the other half thinking it’s fine. I’ll be honest though, it’s pretty hard to find folks who didn’t see this play as a problem. The fact that DoPS saw this play as an ok hit to make, is legitimately puzzling to me.
Nothing is ever black and white, but to me this particular play seemed as open-and-shut as a dangerous hit review could be.
Now the Avs will be without Andrew Cogliano going forward, regardless of what happens tonight in Game 7. On the other side, Jordan Eberle will be wearing #7 tonight for the Seattle Kraken. That to me, doesn’t feel right.
The Val Nichushkin situation
I don’t have much to say here, simply because there isn’t much to say right now.
The overwhelming majority of details are still very muddy, and we haven’t seen an official statement from the team beyond “personal reasons”. Which, in my opinion, we maybe need to start realizing that there may be a good reason for.
There are a couple reports out, some with conflicting information, detailing the specifics of the Friday-afternoon crisis report that was made public. Again, for me, there’s just still too much that isn’t made clear by the little information we have.
All we know for sure right now is that Nichushkin isn’t with the team, and they don’t know when he’ll be back. Waiting for this to play out and more details to emerge is what I would encourage all to do in a situation like this.
Toronto finally breaks through
Nineteen years. It was 2004 the last tome the Toronto Maple Leafs had won a playoff series, but that finally ended last night.
I know it’s easy to pile on the Leafs and their fans, but they have been through he wringer over the last two decades. Not only have they lost in the first round year after year, the losses have been heartbreakers. Game 7s, overtimes, blown series leads – they’ve all just been crushing.
They players, and yes… their fans, deserved this one.
Meghan’s Observations
NHL Playoff Parity
Seven of eight playoff teams won’t be resolved in fewer than six games. After the results of Saturday, we’re guaranteed three Game 7’s, two of which include division leaders.
The record-busting 135 point Boston Bruins, and the recipient of the Presidents’ Trophy, will enter Game 7 against the Florida Panthers tomorrow alongside the Colorado Avalanche and their quest to advance against the Seattle Kraken.
Just four teams are above 0.500 at home – four of which had home ice advantage as well: Vegas, Dallas, Edmonton, and Carolina.
The Vegas Golden Knights were the only team to advance in fewer than six games – a gentleman’s sweep in five games against the Winnipeg Jets.
The first round has revealed the equity among NHL teams no matter the top seed or wild card spot.
It has been an entertaining first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the viewership reflects that.
Impressively, the Seattle/Colorado series ranked third among American audiences. The numbers on the whole are averaging a 20% increase from last year’s so far.
Nathan “MVP” MacKinnon
After failing to register a shot on net in Game 4, MacKinnon’s shot totals are impressively still first among all skaters at 31. The Seattle Kraken obviously came with a game plan designed to shut MacKinnon down specifically.
His usual success with zone entries has been interrupted by their staunch defense in the neutral zone in an attempt to stonewall him. He often has three Seattle skaters surrounding him any time that he has the puck even upon entry.
This fact led to more dump-in’s which were difficult to recover if their forecheck was not going. In addition to Seattle’s efficient lane management, even passing has been made more challenging.
No one has more shots blocked than Cale Makar at 23 shots blocked, but MacKinnon isn’t too far behind at 11th among all skaters (14 blocked), and Seattle’s defender Jamie Oleksiak is a big part of that as a league leader in shots blocked.
After Game 4, MacKinnon talked about Seattle’s aim to suppress him, “I think that’s what their plan is every game. It’s up to me to play my best – however they play is out of my control.”
Still, MacKinnon has accrued three goals and three assists – one goal of which was the game winner in Game 3.
With several absences to the lineup, MacKinnon’s ice time has been among the highest of all forwards in the playoffs. He’s averaging 23:25 a game, but it’s to his expectation.
“It’s what I play most of the time, 22:00-24:00 is pretty standard at this point. I know I need to be physically prepared to go that many minutes. It’s up to me to perform,” he said.
He reached his highest time in their Game 5 loss to the Seattle Kraken 3-2 at 27:01.
“MacKinnon playing 23 and change is nothing. He does it all the time. It’s not like we’re running into 27 minutes every night,” Bednar explained. “We classified this as a must win game at home, so we’re gonna do whatever we have to do in order to get that done.”
“He played hard, he was effective. We needed him to be. He comes up with a big goal for us. Do we get to a point where he runs out of gas? Maybe. But we’re facing elimination. If we got to play him 30 [minutes], we’ll do it.”
Since Cale Makar’s return after serving a one-game suspension, MacKinnon’s ice time did stabilize in Game 6.
The takeaway? Nathan MacKinnon is a pivotal player in Colorado’s success so far. He’s an incredibly important asset, and if the Avs can conquer Game 7, he will be a big reason why.
Department of Player Safety & Andrew Cogliano’s injury
In real time, MacKinnon could be heard exclaiming, “Only two!?” in disbelief. Andrew Cogliano was driven head first into the boards from behind by Jordan Eberle. The officials called Eberle for boarding at 17:44 in the second period, and Cogliano immediately left the game. He did not play another shift in that frame.
He returned for eight shifts in the third period and finished out the game. Saturday, it was announced that Jordan Eberle would face no supplemental discipline. When Jared Bednar addressed the media after their flight home on Saturday afternoon, he expressed confusion over the decision.
Hours later, it was reported that he fractured his C5 Lamina after a follow-up with the doctor.
This isn’t an issue of the Department of Player Safety refusing to review the hit. They review every hit in every game as a standard practice.
According to NHL’s Senior VP of Communications John Dellapina (a contact for Department of Player Safety requests), the hit was reviewed as is procedure and was found to be unworthy of supplemental discipline.
When asked if he could elaborate on the discoveries from the review which led to that decision, he was unable to provide a comment. He explained that it is their procedure: they will never provide an explanation for hits that don’t result in a suspension. He added that there were many, nuanced reasons for this that couldn’t adequately be captured in this one conversation.
Furthermore, even in light of the severity and extent of Cogliano’s injury, the consideration of injury is only considered for hits that were already deemed suspension worthy on their own according to Dellapina.
Losing a player like Andrew Cogliano ahead of Game 7 is a huge blow. His on-ice grittiness and vocal leadership will be greatly missed.
His timeline is listed as out indefinitely, and above all things relating to hockey, you hope that Andrew Cogliano the person is surrounded by his support system at this time.
Coachella Valley vs. Colorado Eagles | Round Two
In American League news, the Eagles are embroiled in a best-of-five series against the Seattle Kraken’s AHL affiliate: the Coachella Valley Firebirds. As the higher seed, Coachella opted to play the first two games in Colorado and close out the final three games (as needed) in front of their home crowd.
The Eagles dropped Game 1. Justus Annunen made 33 saves in the 6-2 loss – it was a bit of a shooting gallery, but they buttoned things up defensively for Game 2 in front of Jonas Johansson. Colorado won 3-2 with goals from Cedric Pare, Josh Jacobs, and Mikhail Maltsev.
The series is split 1-1 and they will play Game 3 in Coachella Sunday. It’s not an elimination game, but it will tilt the series to the brink.
They hoped to get the reinforcement of their captain back for the first time since February 19th, but Brad Hunt was recalled by the Colorado Avalanche this morning. He hadn’t yet travelled to Coachella, so he knew this was a possibility. The Avs have some lineup decisions to make with Andrew Cogliano, Darren Helm, Josh Manson, and Val Nichushkin out for Game 7.
Also to lookout for: forward Jean-Luc Foudy has missed the last four games with a lingering lower-body injury that has given him trouble in the back half of the season. His status is listed as day-to-day, and his return would be a huge boost for the Eagles.
Even though the Eagles are hindered by their own lineup challenges, they’ve managed some of the best special teams in the league through their post-season so far.
