Warren Peters Deserves a Suspension – UPDATE – Suspended One Game

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2tJNQn8gPM&w=400&h=301] The St. Louis Blues dominated the Minnesota Wild on Saturday afternoon by a score of 4-0. The St. Louis defense limited the Wild to just 13 shots. Unfortunately, the big story after the game involved Minnesota’s Warren Peters who had one of the dirtiest hits in recent memory when he cross-checked David Backes in the side of the head. Peter is set to have a hearing today (Sunday), one which hopefully will sit him down for several games for a hit that was completely illegal and uncalled for.

The NHL can’t ignore this one. Alone, the hit itself is worthy of at least a few games – it was a blatant hit with the stick to an opponent’s head. Even worse, the hit occurred after the whistle and involved Peters going out of his way to confront Backes before delivering the hit.

Often we have seen the NHL lack consistency or sensibility when handing out (or not handing out) suspensions for dirty hits involving St. Louis players. Drew Doughty received a $2,500 fine while a similar hit landed Chris Stewart a 3-game suspension.

UPDATE:

Warren Peters has received a one-game suspension. Again, Brendan Shanahan’s video states that David Backes not suffering an injury was a factor in Peters receiving just one game. Um…why? Intent to injure is still intent to injure, regardless of whether Peters was successful.

The NHL continually uses the victim’s health as a basis of how long a suspension should be. This is completely, completely ridiculous. Under that theory, a player could hit a player in the head with his stick (as Peters did to Backes) and if Backes walks away unharmed (Captain America’s head is pretty durable) then we see a slap on the wrist. If Backes would have suffered a concussion, or worse, Peters likely would see a longer sentence. This makes no sense. Punishment can not be determined by the victim’s health.