Is there a place in the game for one-dimensional punchers like Scott, a 6-8 winger whose main job is punching and/or frightening people for a few minutes a night? Increasingly not, because it doesn't make hockey sense in 2013 to spend a roster spot on someone who can't play. Enforcers are on the way out. We've covered this already.
Similarly, there's no point in bringing "The Code" or the concept of players' self-policing into the discussion. Those days are done. Blame whatever or whomever, but facts are facts—Scott, theoretically, would be the policeman, and the Boston Bruins are among the NHL's most traditionally tough teams and the franchise that employs Shawn Thornton. Didn't seem to matter much on Wednesday.
And really, the fact that it was Scott is only tangentially relevant. In some spots, this is going to turn into a debate about fighting—and for the most part, it shouldn't. It's about flagrant disrespect and disregard for the careers (and lives) of the guys you're playing against. Scott's suspension will be the eighth of the NHL season and 14th if you count September.
And whether it's the Buffalo Sabres losing Scott and Patrick Kaleta, or the Dallas Stars losing Ryan Garbutt , or Team X losing Player Y, the punishment, in almost all cases, hurts the player much more than the team. The NHL Department of Player Safety, in particular, is cracking down on repeat offenders; Matt Cooke is Example A that players can change their games, especially if you hit them hard where it counts—their bank accounts.
That's all well and good, but it might be time to speed up the process. If those players were more actively hurting their teams (short of taking themselves out of lineup, which in Scott's case is irrelevant) they'd have more reason to change—and, more importantly, their teams would have less reasons to tolerate (or condone) any of it. The league has decided to crack down on players. At some point, you have to hit franchises hard, too.
So, with that said, here are a few ideas, in order of how realistic it seems to see them implemented. Maybe they work in concert with each other, maybe they don't. Maybe they're impossible, maybe they aren't.
1. More organizational fines
The Sabres got a taste of this in the preseason, when coach Ron Rolston was docked $10,000 for the simple act of playing Scott; Scott started a line brawl with the Toronto Maple Leafs that, ironically, got David Clarkson suspended. There's also precedent; the NHL fined the New York Islanders $100,000 in 2011 for a fight-filled disgrace against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Is $100,000 in straight cash enough of a punishment for an entire franchise, especially for an incident that led to a net 13 suspended games for its players? Not close. Would $100,000 for each game your guys earn do the trick? Kal
eta would then cost the Sabres $1 million. That seems a little more fair. The rate is negotiable—but it has to hurt.
2. Coach penalties
Why shouldn't Rolston, for example, face a suspension without pay, just like Scott? Coaches would tend to reassess what they do and don't allow when their actions cost them money and embarrass their teams. You can bet that a coach wouldn't make it through too many suspensions before losing his job. In the same vein, figure out a way to dock teams practice times. Maybe for every 10 games lost to suspension, an off-day workout goes out the window.
3. Roster/cap penalties
This would be more complicated to use in every instance; it'd be easy to cut, say, a quarter-percent off the Penguins' salary cap for each suspended game, because they're a cap team. For them, that'd result in real-world consequences. For teams that aren't close to the upper limit, and have no real intention on reaching it, this would be irrelevant.
So maybe those teams lose spots off their active roster. If that's too harsh, take away one of their organizational contracts. You can do it the following season; if a team passes the threshold of allowable suspended games in 2013-14, it can only have 49 players signed for 2014-15. This would hurt the NHLPA, as well.
4. Draft-pick docking
This also would hit low-revenue teams where it hurts. Maybe for five suspended games, you lose a seventh-round pick. Ten games, that becomes a sixth-rounder.
5. Piggy-backing suspensions
This is more meant to punish recidivists; if Kaleta comes back and earns a five-gamer , his next suspension would be for 15. The Department of Player Safety already uses an individual's history as a factor in its decisions. Might as well make it explicit.
6. Eye for an eye
This has been kicked around before, but the premise is this: For the Sabres, losing Scott, in a hockey sense, isn't a big deal. The Bruins losing Eriksson, though? That hurts. So—take away the Sabres' version of Eriksson. Measure it by points. Measure it by time on ice. Just figure out a way to quantify it, and force that player (or players) out of the lineup until Eriksson returns.
UPDATE : Like Puck Daddy’s Greg Wyshynski noted, this would cause serious problems when injuries are long-term. He brought up David Perron, who missed 13 months with a concussion caused by a suspendable hit from Joe Thornton. Setting aside the fact that Thornton was more important to San Jose than Perron to the Blues, forcing a team to sit a player for a year isn’t much of an option. So, let’s say eye-for-eye gets capped at a certain point—maybe the length of the original suspension, so Buffalo would lose a top-six forward for however long Scott sits.
7. Local TV blackouts
"Sorry, Stars fans—you can't watch tonight's game because Ryan Garbutt jumped into Dustin Penner's face last October." This would also result in the loss of ad revenue.
8. Take away home games
Each home game accounts, theoretically, for 2.44 percent of a team's gate revenue. Knock out a few of those, and things would quickly clear up. You could incorporate the penalties when it comes time to make the following season's schedule, and pick the benefiting team at random.
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