Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Player Safety Needs Fixing

03/04/2023 at 11:08pm EST

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

George Parros is useless in his job as senior vice president of the NHL’s ironically named Department of Player Safety. He acts as a human guardrail against prosecuting predators. That apparently was the job description when he was hired following a 474-game NHL career in which the Princeton product picked up 1,092 penalty minutes and engaged in 158 fights (per HockeyFights) while recording 18 goals and 18 assists.

If the NHL is going to go into contortions to excuse a prior offender such as Austin Watson after he charged Tyler Motte and simultaneously thrust himself upward to deliver a headshot with his elbow and shoulder, then the department should be disbanded.

It is as if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were working in concert with banks and credit card companies.

This isn’t the first time Watson has committed a similar offense. He was suspended for two games for an elbow and shoulder to Boston defenseman Jack Alcahn just last February. That was his second two-game suspension. Motte is all but certainly concussed.

Yet the Department of Player Safety, with full endorsement of the league and Board of Governors, finds a way to legitimize hits to the head by splitting infinitives between initial conduct and secondary conduct as if the brain knows or cares. Truly, it is beyond me why team owners authorize this type of woefully titled supplementary discipline system that increases the likelihood of injury.

continued plus more topics...

Steeb

The NHL PA is somewhat at fault here, too, bkz they seem to always forget that they are supposed to represent the INJURED player, too, not just the offender. But Perros as head of DoPS was a joke from day 1.

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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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