Ovechkin suspended for being Ovechkin

Alexander Ovechkin was suspended for two games earlier this week for hitting Brian Campbell into the boards. To make a long story short, it was a dirty hit, and would certainly warrant a two-minute penalty for boarding. Instead, Ovehkin gets five minutes, a game misconduct and a two-game suspension. And I don't understand why.

Again, he shouldn't have thrown the check; Campbell has his back to Ovechkin and is clearly vulnerable. I'm assuming Ovechkin thought Campbell was going to the boards to dump the puck to his left, and he was going to take him into the boards. when Campbell didn't, Ovechkin shouldn't have taken the hit.

Shockingly, I find I agree with Mike Milbury, who said something along the lines of "if Campbell can't take a hit, maybe he should switch to playing squash". I don't understand what Campbell was doing skating like that; he'd just played the puck, and hitting him in that situation is legal. What's he doing crouching a yard from the boards? At the end of the day, the reason Brian Campbell was injured is because he was sleeping on the play.

In Monday night's Bruins-Devils game, Dennis Seidenberg threw a far dirtier hit on Zach Parise. Seidenberg hit Parise as they were going for the puck, and Parise hit the boards awkwardly. He never played the puck, so it was clearly interference, as well as a very dangerous hit. No penalty was called, and I can't help thinking it's because his jersey says "Seidenberg". Looking at that hit and the Ovechkin hit, it's unfathomable that one of them is a misconduct and suspension and the other isn't even a minor penalty.

Penalties based on a player's reputation are given all the time. Anyone who follows the Finnish league may remember Matt Nickerson, who could barely step on the ice without getting a penalty. In my opinion, there are two reasons why Ovechkin is suspended. Firstly, he's acquired a reputation for "reckless hits". Sure, he makes them, but so do several other players, and they don't get suspended for plays like that. Milan Lucic hit Andy Greene from behind and jumped on him in the same Bruins-Devils game. That wasn't a penalty either. Again, if it was Ovechkin...

The most important reason Ovechkin is suspended is, nevertheless, Matt Cooke. Everyone who follows the NHL must know by now that Cooke took a run at Marc Savard and blindsided him in the head. Savard now has a serious concussion and is out for the remainder of the season, if not for good. Cooke wasn't given a penalty in-game, and wasn't suspended. For what it's worth, I think it's perfectly understandable; head shots aren't a penalty in the NHL, after all, and Savard had played the puck, so as per NHL rules, it's a legal hit. The argument has been made, by Don Cherry among others, that he should have gotten a five-minute penalty for deliberately attempting to injure his opponent. That penalty is almost never called in the NHL, and I've never seen it called on an otherwise legal hit. Basically what is being argued, and what Cherry was openly saying, was that Cooke should have been given a five-minute major because he's Matt Cooke.

In my opinion, Ovechkin would never have been given a major penalty without Cooke's hit on Savard. There's been such an outcry over Cooke not getting a penalty that the threshold for calling a major penalty is probably lower right now than it's ever been. If not for Cooke, maybe Ovechkin would have gotten a two-minute penalty; now they're essentially suspending Ovechkin because they didn't suspend Cooke.

So at the end of the day, Ovechkin has to sit out two games because he's Alex Ovechkin, and because Matt Cooke hit Marc Savard. That's NHL officiating for you.