from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

The tap-on-wrist three-game suspension issued to the Maple Leafs’ Leo Komarov for his elbow to the jaw of Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh at 18:58 of the first period of Thursday’s match in Toronto is simply the last inadequate Department of Player Safety response to NHL headhunting.

The fault, though, lies not with vice president Stephane Quintal and his staff, bound to follow the DOPS’s own lenient precedent, but with both the NHL and NHLPA’s failure to adopt tough measures to combat such behavior.

Here are four suggestions for rules the league should adopt with full support of the players’ association:

1. Restore match penalties for deliberate injury to 10:00 in the box from the current 5:00. The NHL once had this rule, and at least as late as the 1983-84 season, when the Devils’ Bob Hoffmeyer served 10:00 for swinging his stick and hitting the North Stars’ Brian Bellows across the back in Minnesota on Dec. 17, 1983. I’m not sure why the rule was changed.

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