Joe Haggerty Claims Bruins Patrice Bergeron Was “Slewfooted” By Hurricanes Jeff Skinner

As a Bruins fan I follow Joe Haggerty on Twitter and try to read most of his work, he is the official “Bruins Insider” after all. However I was a little disappointed with Joe this morning.

He tweeted a video this AM and stated, “The video evidence of why Patrice Bergeron lost it on Jeff Skinner last night…” and then he posted an article on CSNNE.com this claiming Bergeron was slewfooted by Skinner.

Now, I watched the game last night and if you did too you know we weren’t afforded the replay that Haggerty and everyone else saw this morning:

I’ve watched this video more than a dozen times and the important piece of evidence comes in at about the 1:30 mark when they zoom in on the alleged slewfoot incident.

I don’t see a full on slewfoot myself, all I see is a couple of players getting tangled up and both getting dragged to the ice very hard.

I know Skinner has been accused of the slewfoot before and even has one accusation of a slewfoot already this season, but I just can’t find him guilty of it on this play and it’s a “quasi-slewfoot” at best. Again I’ll say it, all I see is two players getting tangled up and Bergy just happens to get the worst of it.

Now, for the sake of fairness I will say that it doesn’t look good for Skinner. He’s a repeat offender and won’t be given the benefit of the doubt by many. Especially because when they first get tangled Skinner’s foot is indeed behind Bergeron’s legs and it appears to help bring Bergy to the ice, however I find it impossible to tell if its intentional or even malicious. To me, it all just looks like incidental contact.

It’s also important to note that there may not be a more respected/respectful player in the NHL than Bergeron. It takes a lot to get under this guy’s skin and even more to get him to drop the gloves, so it’s easy to see why people would look and try to find what set him off. The last time Bergy reacted like this, it was because Vancouver Canucks forward Alex Burrows had made a snack out of one of Bergy’s fingers.

According to Haggerty’s article, this is how he saw the play: “So it was expected that a threat to Bergeron’s health was at the heart of the outburst against the Canes youngster, and a review of the video from Monday night’ game clearly shows Skinner taking the B’s center down with a slewfoot behind the net. The take-down was violent enough that it also caused defenseman Dennis Seidenberg to trip over Skinner as he was in the act of throwing Bergeron down to the ice.”

Sorry Joe, but I just don’t see a “full-on slewfoot”. The play is definitely questionable, however in no way is it a definitive slewfoot in my opinion.

Apparently the NHL hasn’t seen a slewfoot yet either. At the time this was written, Skinner had not been disciplined by the NHL or even summoned by  NHL disciplinary head Brendan Shanahan. For now, the jury is still out and myself or Haggerty could be proven wrong by the end of the day.

So, what do you guys think? Slewfoot or no slewfoot?