Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

A Fine For "Turtling"?

03/11/2015 at 12:46pm EDT

Kerry Frase of TSN answers an email...

In the Ducks-Canucks game, Patrick Maroon was going to take a tripping call. He turned to Kassian and said "let's go" as Kassian had been encouraging him to fight for 3 games. Maroon then quickly threw his stick down with a 'fake" gloves drop and then he put his hands over his ears and turned his back until he felt a punch, then he dropped the gloves and "drew" the even up call. Yes a good play on his part.....if you think all diving/embellishing is an acceptable play.

But my question is why do the refs fall for that? And do they like being shown up when they see it on replay? Should he get fined by the NHL for embellishment?

Turning to engage and invite an opponent to fight and then 'turtle' is definitely a form of embellishment that, in my opinion, is definitely worthy of a fine. A player that resorts to this in this type of unmanly behavior is doing so purely for the purpose of attempting to draw a penalty. A minor for unsportsmanlike conduct and/or misconduct penalty for "inciting" can also be imposed to a player that is guilty of this form of conduct (Rule 75.4 iii & v).

We shouldn't just focus our attention on Patrick Maroon here for his successful attempt to draw Zack Kassian into incurring a penalty. The game footage shows that Maroon turned and said something to Kassian, faced the Vancouver player and did drop his stick prior to using his gloves as ear-muffs. This was an absolute 'dumb' penalty for Zach Kassian to incur and negate a Canuck power play when Maroon was being whistled for tripping Henrik Sedin.

read on and watch the incident below...

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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