Boston Bruins: The league needs to be consistent with suspensions

Jeremy Lauzon is the latest Boston Bruins player to fall afoul of the league’s willingness to suspend now and think later.

While I’m all for the league cracking down on head shots, Jeremy Lauzon and the Boston Bruins should feel rightfully aggrieved at his two-game suspension for his hit on Derek Stepan.

The Boston Bruins defenseman did make contact with Stepan’s head, yes. However, it’s fair to argue the contact was incidental and he’d adjusted his path that if Stepan hadn’t stooped to look at the puck, the impact doesn’t happen.

Likewise, if Stepan leaves the ice, doesn’t return to the game and is ruled out for an extended period with an injury pertaining to the hit, it’s all well and good to punish Lauzon.

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If the player has a history of making these sort of hits and generally causing trouble around the league, again, better to stomp on it early.

However, in the case of Jeremy Lauzon, the young Boston Bruins defenseman is still very new to the NHL. He doesn’t have a prior history of such actions. Stepan was able to get back up, isn’t injured and in fact played out the rest of the game.

To hand down a two-game suspension is incredibly heavy-handed of the NHL Department of Player Safety. A fine and a warning that these hits aren’t tolerated would’ve been a smarter choice.

As a lone example of checking to the head, it stands to reason that a match penalty was fair either way. However, this isn’t a lone example; the Boston Bruins could rightly argue that a call was missed with Lawson Crouse‘s elbow to Charlie McAvoy‘s head.

If you’re handing down a match penalty and two-game suspension for a check to the head along the boards, you have to give the same harsh penalty for an elbow to the head.

Looking to both calls, it’s quite fair to conclude that Lauzon doesn’t hit Stepan with intent to injure, not compared to Crouse’s shot that only garnered two minutes.

We’re not asking that the league sees every hit or makes every call, we’re simply asking that the punishments dished out are even and fitting to the crime.

In this case, the Boston Bruins player will end up having missed two and a half games while an elbow to the head has literally meant the Coyotes player missed 2 minutes.

A little harsh if you ask me; why not suspend them both?