Kronwall on Havlat. The Debate.

In an attempt to review the crushing hit Nicklas Kronwall delivered on Martin Havlat last night, I opted to check out a few other sites and see what the consensus was. Was it clean? or dirty? Obviously you'll get the Detroit faithful claiming it to be a clean, hard hit. And also as obvious would be the Chicago camp, who would have you believe he deserves a suspension as a result.

I'll provide some facts, and let you decide. You saw the video in my last post, but if you want a better look, The Triple Deke has it blown up nice and big.

Lets start with the officials. After the hit, neither of the officials raised their arm to indicate a penalty would be called. Meaning that "as it happened", the referees didn't consider the hit to be deserving of a penalty until after Havlat wasn't able to get up. An NHL official shouldn't be able to make a call based on the result of the action. Now the standard counter argument is to defend the referees and say "...but the game is so fast, and decisions have to be made quickly..." OK,
that's fine. Allow me to slow it down.

Screen Shot from a KuklasKorner blogger here.

This hit is textbook. From the pic above, the puck is in Havlat's feet, Kronwall's forearms are down, and didn't jump. Lets hear from Blackhawks defenceman Brian Campbell;

"Marty didn't have the puck," Chicago defenceman Brian Campbell said Saturday. "If he hit Marty and hit him clean, that's fine. That happens. ... It's just how he hits. You can see his forearms coming up and his hands are coming up and he's lunging forward and jumping into the guy."

I wonder if he looks back and the footage and realizes how foolish his quote sounded? So after proving your 3 arguments were false, I can't help but assume Campbell thinks the hit was clean.

Damien Cox from the Toronto Star summed the play up like this;

Hard to believe four experienced NHL officials could get a call so wrong.

Did the misguided first period expulsion of defenceman Niklas Kronwall from Game 3 of the Western Conference final on Friday night between the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks decide the game? No, but it sure changed it...

...There was just no need for the call. Even worse, clearly one of the on-ice officials simply made it up after seeing Havlat on the ice and deciding something illegal must have happened without actually seeing a foul. It wasn't even close to interference because Havlat was in possession of the puck, and so the play wasn't remotely like the late, blindside hit by Anaheim's Mike Brown on Detroit's Jiri Hudler in the previous round.

David Staples from the Edmonton Journal had this to say;

If you didn't see Kronwall's outstanding hit on Martin Havlat of the Hawks -- surely one of the best hits of the year in the NHL

The only thing wrong with the Kornwall hit was that someone truly deserving of such a masterpiece such as Jordan Tootoo, Steve Ott, Matt Cooke, Sean Avery, Ben Eager, Adam Burish or Robyn Regehr wasn't on the receiving end of it.

Even John Jaeckel (A Chicago Blackhawk blogger) wrote;

If I were a Wings fan, I would feel jobbed. No doubt. It was, basically, a clean hit. For Hawk fans, it is not easy to see one of your stars get knocked out and leave the game. But Brouwer did it to Phaneuf on a clean hit and Campbell did it to Demitra on a clean hit.

Empty Netters (Pittsburgh Post Gazette) shared their own screenshot trying to show that Kronwall left his feet, but just like last year's Stanley Cup final, the Pens fans will come up short in this debate. I could take the time to explain the physics surrounding Kronwalls higher center of gravity and forward motion hitting Havlats lower center of gravity thus forcing Kronwall upwards and making Marty crumble like Bettman's dreams of Sid winning the cup in '08... but all that would be a waste of time because the Post-Gazette would much rather write about the Red Wings and call the Kronwall hit dirty, while attempting to take the focus off the questionable hits on Eric Cole and Tuomo Ruutu.

Nice try ladies. Bottom line: Kronner crushed Havlat with a hard CLEAN hit. I hate to see someone get hurt, but that how contact sports are played.