Senior Executive VP Colin Campbell and the NHL wanted to send a message. “Mr. Cooke, a repeat offender, directly and unnecessarily targeted the head of an opponent who was in an unsuspecting and vulnerable position,” said Campbell via statement. “This isn’t the first time this season that we have had to address dangerous behavior on the ice by Mr. Cooke, and his conduct requires an appropriately harsh response.”
On Monday afternoon, Pittsburgh Penguins forward Matt Cooke received that message. Cooke will be suspended ten games, the rest of the regular season, as well as the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for his hit on New York’s Ryan McDonagh. Cooke will forfeit $219,512.20 in salary as a result of the suspension.
The outrage over Cooke’s dirty hits only figures to grow in the coming weeks as critics chastise him for lack of respect.
Cooke’s small group of supporters seems to be dwindling with every elbow, knee, and hit from behind. His teammates are always quick to recite a memorable goal play-by-play. On Sunday afternoon they were suddenly struck with amnesia when it came to giving their reaction to the hit.
“Personally, I didn’t see it,” Jordan Staal said.
“Honestly, I didn’t see it,” Chris Kunitz echoed.
With Cooke on the shelf until the second round of the playoffs, the Pittsburgh front office needs to decide how to rein in a player they’ve encouraged to blur the line between legal hit and devastating blow. Penguins GM Ray Shero openly acknowledged Cooke’s questionable behavior in an insightful Sports Illustrated feature last week by Michael Farber:
“Is he a dirty player? Yeah, he’s a dirty player. [Former defenseman] Ulf Samuelsson was a dirty player. But there’s value in that. Is there value in injuring players and getting suspended? No. But there are football players in the Hall of Fame who were dirty. There are brushback pitchers in the Hall of Fame.”
Quantifying that value is easy.
Shero, known for his financial responsibility, handed Cooke a new three-year contract worth $5.4m in the offseason. Players who receive more than two-year extensions under Shero’s watch unofficially become part of the team’s ‘core’. Translation: the Penguins showed this summer that they coveted Cooke’s reputation and all that he stood for.
In fact, when Cooke has dialed back his physical play in the aftermath of media scrutiny, he hears about it from the coaching staff.
Farber said “Penguins coach Dan Bylsma has actually met with the winger this season to ask why he had turned down the opportunity for more heavy hits, which Cooke explained as a hangover from Rule 48—the Cooke Rule.”
The dirty player Shero compared to Cooke would have never turned down an opportunity for heavy hits.
Samuelsson developed a cult following during his five seasons in Pittsburgh. Best known for his uber-physical play, the defenseman’s style would’ve been welcome across town as a member of the ‘Steel Curtain’ football defense. In those days, the bigger and dirtier the hit, the louder the hometown crowd cheered.
When Ulf delivered a knee-to-thigh blow to Boston’s Cam Neely in the 1991 Wales Conference Finals that left the Bruins star hobbling across the ice, the Penguins faithful roared in approval – delighted with the fact their Gladiator had successfully dismantled yet another foe:
Samuelsson returned to finish the job on Neely’s leg later that series with a hit that turned the goal-scorer’s thigh into bone – literally.
Neely developed an unusual condition known as myositis ossificans traumatica in his quadriceps resulting in calcification of the muscle. The Hall-of-Famer limped through a few half-seasons until the injury eventually forced him into early retirement in 1996 – a path similar to the one Marc Savard of the Bruins could be on.
When Matt Cooke laser-guided his elbow into the head of rookie Ryan McDonagh on Sunday afternoon, there was no acclamation or applause from the crowd. A collective gasp and a smattering of boo’s is all that accompanied Cooke on his lonely journey into the shadows of the locker room runway. Penguins fans are very familiar with the danger of an elbow to the temple, but their reaction to the play was not unique.
The culture of hockey is changing.
Boston’s Zdeno Chara was booed every time he touched the puck in a road game against the New York Islanders last week. Chara wasn’t suspended for his hit on Montreal’s Max Pacioretty, but that hasn’t kept hockey fans across the country from voicing their displeasure over the 6-foot-9 giant’s recklessness.
With the sport finally on the verge of serious rule changes, one has to wonder if players like Cooke have a future in the game.
The roster spot once reserved for the resident enforcer is already on the brink of extinction. Georges Laraque and Donald Brashear find themselves cast aside in a league where one-dimensional fighters can no longer justify employment. As the interest of the fan continues to shift towards skill and away from brute force or dirty hits, is there still room for the ‘NHL pest’?
Sean Avery, a healthy scratch in three of the past four games, was not in the lineup to challenge Cooke on Sunday. The $4m agitator, claimed off re-entry waivers from the Dallas Stars, seems to have fallen out of favor with Rangers coach John Tortorella as of late. Avery’s irritating style of play is often overshadowed by senseless penalties. Just like enforcers, at some point players like he and Cooke become more risk than reward when games matter most.
Earlier today, Detroit coach Mike Babcock spoke with the Tribune Review about Cooke’s value to the Penguins’ lineup: “Well, I mean, he’s a guy that works hard. He’s a forechecker, a grinder, a worker. So I mean, he provides that for them. It’s not like they don’t have lots of guys that forecheck and work hard.”
If the punishing hits and (completely pointless) scrums in front of the net after every whistle are eliminated some day, Matt Cooke will be reduced to a penalty-killing 15-goal scorer with a knack for costly penalties and now lengthy suspensions. As Cooke said in the SI article, his on-ice persona is the key to success.
With or without the pressure from the front office and coaching staff, it’s evident that Cooke doesn’t have an ‘OFF’ switch. Chris Simon didn’t either. The league suspended him seven times for on-ice conduct before Simon skate-stomped another player’s leg on his way out of the NHL.
If you’re scoring at home, Matt Cooke’s suspension tally is now at five.
The fans have spoken. Cooke’s teammates no longer have his back. Are Bylsma, Shero, and owner Mario Lemieux still content with having this type of player as a part of their team? Quite frankly, is anyone?
Appreciate the comments.
@Adrian – I agree, Cooke (and others who play the game on the edge) will be forced to adapt.
@Justin – I understand your point on using suspensions as the barometer for dirty play, but a year ago even headshots weren’t suspendable for the most part. Big picture, I think the culture of hockey is changing and headshots are only the beginning. The reaction from fans with regards to cheap/dirty play is challenging all of the elements of the game that we took for granted for so many years. “That’s just hockey” doesn’t fly anymore. It doesn’t matter if it’s Cooke, Gillies, or a perceived ‘good guy’ like Chara.
If you told me five years ago that enforcers would be almost phased out by now, I wouldn’t have believed you. In time I think the game will clean itself up, it has to clean itself up, and players that make a living pushing the boundaries of the current rules will need to change if they want to stick around. Matt Cooke’s hit didn’t start the shift in perspective, but it’s certainly not the end either in my opinion.
What do you guys think the next elbow to the head will warrant? If its two games like hits by Heatley and others, does that devalue the Cooke suspension?
Hey Mike,
Good article. I disagree that it’s the end of the pest though. Being a pest is one thing, but having to cheap shot guys to do it is another. There are plenty of pests in league history that didn’t have a history of head shots. And to be honest, even dirty hits that don’t involve the head aren’t looked at that bad (per the suspensions I’ve seen). What the NHL is really cracking down on is headshots. If guys are injuring players with cheap shots to other parts of the body the NHL hasn’t disciplined guys nearly as bad as they have for headshots.
James: The Heatley hit and the Cooke hit were hardly similar in impact let alone the act itself.
The handling of the Chara situation was crappy.
Insightful as always, Mike.
I think players like Matt Cooke can be effective in the game but because of the new rule changes, need to quickly adapt or risk being marginalized when they repeatedly get themselves suspended.
If Cooke can rein himself in to simply keep his elbows down as a start, he can remain a solid physically-intimidating player on the PK who contributes 10 to 15 G per year from the third line – any organization would take that for $1.8MM/yr.
Keep up the good work.
NHL discipline is an absolute wreck. They have consistently applied discipline to the reputation, and not the act. That’s why Heatley, Marchand and Hornqvist made off with 2 games, 2 games and a 2,500 dollar fine, respectively, for hits that were, for all practical purposes, identical to Matt Cooke’s.
Chara almost paralyzed Max Pacioretty. Say it again, folks. One one-hundredth of an inch this way or that, break it in just the right way, Pacioretty never walks again. That close. But because Chara seems like a decent person, the most he has to endure is the ire of a drunk and crazy Montreal fan base.
Cooke deserves a long suspension, but the NHL continually picks the low-hanging fruit in these types of situations. I can’t respect the Cooke decision until players who aren’t villified but commit similar acts are punished accordingly.