The angles are pretty useless in terms of seeing what actually happened, but the hit didn’t LOOK dirty from what I could see. It LOOKED like it was shoulder to shoulder and Plante turned into the boards when he was hit. It didn’t look like it was from behind. It could have been a head shot, but couldn’t tell.

Pretty hard to say.

Posted by teldar on 12/27/11 at 12:04 PM ET

Odd, really.  A lot of people spend a lot of time defending bad hits with the old “keep your head up and this wouldn’t have happened!” mantra where it completely doesn’t fit and we finally have a play where it fits perfectly on a hit where the guy doesn’t even make contact with the head.

Even five and a game was too harsh for this hit. The guy with the puck has to realize he’s got contact coming to him with the angles at which this play developed.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 12/27/11 at 12:19 PM ET

That was a good hit, Plante did that to himself by putting himself in a bad position right before the hit.  These young guys need to learn that its as much their responsibility to protect themselves as it is the other players responsibility to not take advantage of a player in a vulnerable position.

Posted by Hootinani on 12/27/11 at 03:15 PM ET

Looked like a solid hockey play.  I’d love to see a few wings use their bodies like that.  Plante just looked like a kid in a man’s game.

Posted by HockeytownOverhaul on 12/27/11 at 08:07 PM ET