via Cam Cole of the Vancouver Sun at the National Post,

The white flag To use hockey terminology, it’s impossible to say where the back-pressure is coming from, but it sure seems the National Hockey League has taken its foot off the Player Safety gas pedal, and it’s once more open season on the best players in the game.

Put your personal isolation camera on your favourite superstar and watch how many times he is hooked (Connor McDavid), slashed (Johnny Gaudreau), boarded (under the all-inclusive ‘finishing the check’ canard), tripped or elbowed in a single game, and if you still don’t think someone on high has whispered in the ear of the Department of Player Safety, you’re watching different games than the ones on my TV.

The DoPS crew must sit around the table inventing new names for obvious head blows (See: Nazem Kadri/Daniel Sedin). Somehow, “blindside hit” wasn’t adequate to protect the hitter from punishment, so the phrase was removed.

Maybe it’s just the league’s way of ensuring that the lousy teams can still compete. Or maybe the Neanderthals among the GMs have the loudest voices, and have convinced the others that the blow-up hit, in which the sole aim is to injure the opponent, is integral to the game. Perhaps, having already irretrievably lost goal-scoring to coaching strategies, they fear that without violent contact there will be nothing left to sell.