Mike In Woburn: You May Not Like Rinaldo, But His Hit Was Perfectly Clean

By Mike In Woburn, 98.5 The Sports Hub Contributor

BOSTON (CBS) -- When Bruins agitator Zac Rinaldo laid out Philadelphia Flyers center Sean Couturier at the end of the firperiod on Wednesday night, the people with "six games" in the Rinaldo suspension pool were ready to cash in their chips. A rat like Rinaldo and a borderline hit like that? He was going to get a week off for sure.

But a funny thing happened while the hockey Twitterverse was gathering up their torches and pitchforks.

The NHL got it right.

In a clear and concise video, the NHL's department of player safety gave a frame by frame explanation of why they were not only not disciplining Rinaldo, but also why his check was technically clean. It was a decision that was well-explained, completely logical, backed by facts and devoid of bias. If the NFL had hired Stephane Quintal instead of Ted Wells, we wouldn't have wasted seven months of our lives on air pressure.

This wasn't a dirty hit by Rinaldo as scores of people asserted immediately after the hit. It wasn't a late hit. Rinaldo didn't pick or target Couturier's head. It wasn't even charging, the penalty for which Rinaldo received a major and a game misconduct. And most assuredly, Couturier wasn't a "helpless player." This was Old Time Hockey at its finest. A hard, mean, punishing check. The penalty was called on the ice because the referees do not have the benefit of hours of Zapruder-esque film study to make their decision. Nowadays, refs almost always give the offending player the gate to try to defuse the situation and prevent reprisals.

But this factual avalanche of exoneration still didn't stop the misplaced outrage. It had to be a dirty hit and Zac Rinaldo should have been suspended. Why? Because he was Zac Rinaldo.

This is what ticks me off. Well this, and the fact that by defending the hit I am being forced to ipso facto defend Rinaldo.

Full disclosure: I hated the Rinaldo trade. I'd rather give up a third-round pick for an autographed picture of Chris Bourque than a rat like Rinaldo. The only time I'd dress the guy is if I had a real score to settle and didn't care how the Bruins paid the tab. Aside from being the nuclear option in a blood feud, he is imminently replaceable. If he scores more than four goals this season, I will buy an authentic Kris Letang jersey and let him board me.

But even though I can't stand the guy, I am not going to condemn him for a legal hit just because he is who he is.

If the hit is clean, the hit is clean. It doesn't matter who threw it. If the Finnish Fog Joonas Kemppainen suddenly coalesced into a physical form and delivered the same hit, we would have heard none of this faux outrage. But that's wrong? Remember a few years back when Dan Paille got Raymond Sawada in the trolley tracks and got a little too much of the Dallas Star's head? We knew Dan Paille wasn't looking to destroy Sawada, or anything other than the end glass on a breakaway. He was just laying a hit on a player with his head down. But in today's NHL that was technically a bad, suspendable hit.

In the case with Couturier, the hit was delivered by Rinaldo, so are we supposed to ignore that it didn't break any rules and just suspend him? Because hey! Rinaldo!

And here is another thing. If you lower the bar for the suspension here because you think Rinaldo deserves it, then you are lowering the standard for discipline for everyone. And let me tell you, there is absolutely an element in the media, in this very town, that want this badly. Under the guise of "player safety" they want to neuter the physicality from the game and turn the NHL into bubble hockey, where every player just stays in his slot and can go up and down the ice and spin around in total safety. We've seen it already a few years ago when Ottawa's Erik Gryba obliterated Montreal's Lars Eller with a textbook green-light hit. There is no question in my mind that it was a legal hit, but because of the optics of Eller's injury (he landed face first on the ice and bled significantly), and because the media conjured up a category 5 Hysteri-cane, Gryba was suspended.

I don't want media members with an agenda using "player safety" to legislate aggression and contact out of the sport, and if you fall for the "Rinaldo deserves to be suspended because of his track record" narrative, you're aiding and abetting them. Rinaldo's reputation had nothing to do with the legality of his behavior. And if his play was legal, neither his rap sheet nor his reasons for making the play matter.

You want to turn the NHL into the mockery the NFL has become? A game where every defender is forced to slow down and stifle their instincts to make sure they aren't suspended 10 games for what should be a legal play? We already went through an entire offseason of a league bending the way the rules are interpreted because of the way the public perceives a player/team. It was terrible, so why ask for it in hockey?

I want physical hockey in the NHL way more than I want Zac Rinaldo out of it. And ultimately, that's what Rinaldo's hit was. Physical hockey.

You want Rinaldo suspended? You'll have to wait a week.

Mike In Woburn, formerly known as Mike From Attleboro, is a regular caller to the Felger & Massarotti Show. You can find him on Twitter @MikeFromATown.

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• Boston Bruins
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