After Thursday night’s loss to the Islanders, all anybody
really wanted to talk about was Claude Giroux’s sick shootout goal, but it was
a different play involving G that grabbed our attention.
Giroux was giving chase to the puck in the Isles’ zone when
Lubomir Visnovsky crushed the Philly captain into the boards with a devastating
hit from behind. Thankfully he would be okay, but these are always scary.
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Two things immediately stood out: 1. the lack of a penalty
call, and 2. no retaliation from his Flyers’ teammates.
Keith Jones defended Visnovsky somewhat, pointing out Giroux
turned in such a way that exposed him to the dangerous collision with the boards,
and you know what? Jonesy appears to be right. Take a look at these still
frames.
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The force is ultimately going to occur between the 2 and the
8, but Visnovsky was skating almost parallel to Giroux, and the New York
defenseman actually sort of beats Giroux to the spot. You never want to see
the end result of this race to the puck, but it certainly doesn’t appear to be
intentional, and I’m not sure it’s even illegal. No word yet on whether
Visnovsky has received a call from the league office, but don’t expect one,
either.
The other part of the play that raised some eyebrows is the
fact that nobody came to Giroux’s aid. Your captain gets destroyed like that,
and there is zero physical response?
Neither Jakub Voracek nor Matt Read is known for their
fighting, and the blue liners were in a tight spot themselves with Braydon
Coburn lost to injury in the second period, and Nicklas Grossmann and Andrej
Meszaros already out of the lineup. Not necessarily wise to take another
defenseman off the ice with under three minutes to play, much less send a bunch
of toughs out for the next shift when you’re down a goal.
And where was Scott Hartnell, besides complaining about
non-calls in the dressing room after the game? Currently playing on a line with
Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds. Peter Laviolette may want to reevaluate that
decision.
Then again, there’s a time and a place for retaliation. Had
Hartsy got in Visnovsky’s face, he wouldn’t have been on the ice to jam home
the game-tying goal and save a point out of the whole disaster of a game.
Seeing that the hit was probably clean in the first place, it would’ve looked
pretty foolish.
I’d still probably feel better knowing he was out there with
Giroux though. Should Hartnell be moved back to the top line?
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