After throwing a sucker punch at New York Rangers’ Ryan McDonagh during yesterday’s game, Wayne Simmonds will not be suspended by the League.
By Jay Travers
Surprisingly, Wayne Simmonds will not be suspended for sucker punching New York Rangers‘ captain Ryan McDonagh during a Saturday matinee in Philadelphia.
It was a clear dirty punch from the Flyers’ fan favorite. McDonagh did hit Simmonds a little up high with the stick from the back, but it was the retaliation that was disgusting.
RELATED: Watch The Rangers Discuss Super Bowl Snacks (Video)
There is no place for that in the game, at all. There should be zero tolerance for it. A five minute game misconduct, with intent to injure in this case, is not enough. He left the game after the first period, and then played today against Washington.
He easily could have suckered Alex Ovechkin this time. Does a player have to repeatedly go around like a goon before he gets suspended? There is no way this should have gone away like it was nothing.
If Simmonds did not get suspended for the punch, he could have gotten suspended for throwing the stick at linesman Kiel Murchison, as seen here:
As if the punch was not bad enough, throwing your stick at a referee or linesman is another no. The NHL’s officiating has seen two strikes already, and there is a third.
After Simmonds was given the game misconduct penalty, the referees did not tell the Flyers head coach to put a player into the penalty box.
Per Pat Leonard, Alain Vigneault had this to say:
“When you get a major you’re allowed as a coach to put in your player when you see fit during the five minutes. When it’s a match penalty the referees are supposed to automatically tell the coach to put somebody in, which they forgot. But they say if (Voracek) would’ve scored on that breakaway on the same play, it would’ve been a disallowed goal.”
That is three strikes for the NHL officiating crew, in only one game. Something has to change here, the officials tend to get the call right about 95% of the time, but Saturday was a fail on three levels for them.
