People are free to disagree, but I will never give Cooke the benefit of the doubt.

Posted by Da lil Guy from Ottawa on 02/13/13 at 10:13 PM ET

Yep the Clown Car parade has started

Posted by Evilpens on 02/13/13 at 10:56 PM ET

That just looks like a freak accident. Cooke’s skate twice pops up off the ice as they are going into the boards, like skipping. I know his reputation but I’ll chalk this one up to just a weird angle/play.

Posted by phillyd from Southern New Jersey on 02/13/13 at 11:27 PM ET

Agreed.  It looks like a freak play, but I can understand any frustration/anger with Cooke.  He earned his reputation, but it shouldn’t play into this.

Posted by pens fan in baltimore on 02/13/13 at 11:36 PM ET

I won’t ever give Cooke the benefit of the doubt. Also I am very suspicious of his unusual raising his foot as he goes into the boards. Now it may have been an attempted slew foot gone bad, either way, it was a suspicious move.

Posted by timbits on 02/13/13 at 11:59 PM ET

I’m leaning towards that being an intentional act, though obviously only person knows for sure. League won’t take any action against Cooke, based on that video.

That’s a really bad blow for Ottawa. Hopefully Karlsson recovers well and is ready for the start of next season.

Posted by shazam88 from SoCal on 02/14/13 at 12:36 AM ET

I wouldn’t give Matt Cooke the benefit of the doubt either, but that is irrelevant. Each incident should be judged on its own, and this doesn’t look like it could have possibly been intentional.

The sad thing here is that we probably just lost out on watching the most exciting D-man in the league for the remainder of the year.

Posted by Nathan from the scoresheet! on 02/14/13 at 09:49 AM ET

Okay I’m going to backpedal a tad… I only watched the Root Sports video at first. The TSN angle and close-up really makes it look bad. I’m still not necessarily thinking Cooke purposely stomped, but it was definitely a reckless play on the part of Cooke. He had no reason to bring is foot off the ice, other than to knee Karlsson from behind… so this is pretty dicey. I do not envy Shanahan’s job on this one.

Posted by Nathan from the scoresheet! on 02/14/13 at 09:52 AM ET

I don’t think he intentionally cut Karlsson’s achilles, but he was clearly trying to slewfoot him, so he get doesn’t get points for accidentally injuring a guy while failing to make the dirty play he was trying to mae.

Posted by Garth on 02/14/13 at 10:26 AM ET

Come on folks.  The guy has a rep for head shots, playing over the line.  But intentionally trying to slice an Achilles?  It was obviously an unfortunate inadvertent freak play.  And no it was not an attempt to slew foot either. 

Posted by Jack McFly on 02/14/13 at 11:18 AM ET

To me it looked like Cooke was trying to hurt a guy and ended up hurting him worse than intended. It’s like a criminal on trial for murder pleading that he only meant to beat the guy unconscious, not kill him. If Cooke played clean, this wouldn’t be anything other than a lamentable accident. Cooke burned his benefit of doubt long ago.

Posted by redxblack from Akron Ohio on 02/14/13 at 11:21 AM ET

To me it looked like Cooke was trying to hurt a guy and ended up hurting him worse than intended.

That.

Posted by shazam88 from SoCal on 02/14/13 at 12:27 PM ET