Morrissey suspension walks fine line
Coaches ramped up the gamesmanship before one-game ban for cross-check was announced
WINNIPEG — Listen, we can all agree Josh Morrissey’s cross-check to the neck and head of Minnesota’s Eric Staal was worthy of a penalty, right?
Surely a hit with such violent stick action, though astonishingly not penalized in the game, could have resulted in a five-minute major and game misconduct, correct? Those are facts few would dispute.
But ask people on opposite sides of the Winnipeg Jets-Minnesota Wild rivalry about how dirty or suspension-worthy Morrissey’s hit was and you receive very different answers.
In this corner, you have Jets coach Paul Maurice, backed by a rabid Jets Army, who sees no intent to injure in Morrissey’s actions and believes no further disciplinary action should be taken.
And in this corner, you have Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau — with his legion of angry Wild fans hanging on his every word — who called it a vicious, dirty hit that completely changed the outcome of Game 4.
In the end, the NHL department of player safety had the only vote that mattered and Morrissey was slapped with a one-game suspension Wednesday.
Morrissey will be out of the lineup Friday when the Jets, up 3-1 in the best of seven, look to clinch their first playoff series win in franchise history at Bell MTS Place.
Morrissey is an important player in this series, a rock-solid, consistent blue-liner who moves the puck, has a great defensive stick and can dish it out physically.
So it’s no wonder the head coaches were doing so much lobbying in their media availabilities before the hearing was held.
“Well, it’s warranted,” Boudreau said of the hearing with a virtual roar of approval coming from Wild fans on Twitter. “I’m not up here trying to (do) gamesmanship to get the league call extra stuff. It is what it is, though. It was a vicious cross-check to the face.”
Actually, I’d say the gamesmanship was precisely what he was going for.
The same goes for Maurice, who is standing up for a usually clean hockey player, but surely must realize how differently he would view it from the other side.
“I would be surprised (if there was a suspension),” Maurice said to the delight of many Jets fans. “I’m not surprised there’s a hearing. There’s a penalty there and at very most you might look at a fine.
“Based on what I’ve seen for (plays that) were either suspended or fined for a stick that didn’t hit the head, and some of these others have, there’s no intent. There’s a penalty. They missed it.”
The Wild are still bitter about that. Boudreau said the non-call cost his team the game.
If a penalty were called, the Wild would have
had a two-man advantage in a 0-0 game. Had they scored, it might have changed everything in a game the Jets went on to win 2-0. Or so the Minnesota thinking goes.
Connor Hellebuyck, who had a 30-save shutout, might have had something to say about that, but Boudreau was undeterred Wednesday.
“Well, usually I’m pretty subjective in that, OK, it was a bad call, but we didn’t deserve to win anyway or this and that,” Boudreau said. “But that had a definite impact on the whole game.”
Well said, roared Wild fans.
Cry us a river, Jets fans responded. Maurice pointed to other nasty hits and noncalls in the series that affected games.
“Things get missed,” he said. “We clearly felt there was intent on the (Tyler) Myers hit (by Marcus Foligno). There was absolutely, in my mind, intent on the hit on (Jacob) Trouba from Foligno … the (Nino) Niederreiter head butt to (Ben) Chiarot.”
Maurice might have a point there. Foligno was a key player in Game 3. He took runs at Jets players, arguably targeted Trouba’s head and knocked Myers out of the game. He later scored a goal.
That doesn’t make what Morrissey did right, of course.
“I try to pride myself on playing the game hard and playing honest,” Morrissey said. “I’ve never been suspended in my life. I’m not a dirty player.”
Still, it was a mistake and he’ll have to pay for it. Just don’t expect the Jets to agree with the decision. And don’t expect the Wild to stop talking about it if the series ends with a Winnipeg win.
“I would be surprised (if there was a suspension) . ... There’s a penalty there and at very most you might look at a fine.” — Paul Maurice