Foligno Should Be Looking Over His Shoulder with NHL Poised to Come Down Hard on Sen

Talk about a non-SENSical situation. Now that the bad pun is out of the way and the situation has been sufficiently made light of, it's time to get serious, which, in all honesty does not add any sizeable degree of logic to Ottawa Senator Nick Foligno's blind-side hit on Carolina Hurricane Patrick Dwyer on Thursday night.

It's abundantly clear that Foligno is not a dirty player... a fringe second-liner who may likely never pan out as the offensive threat he was envisioned to be when drafted in the first round of 2006, sure. But dirty? No way. And it's not as if Dwyer is the type of offensive threat or hated pest that would make for an effective target of such a dirty hit. In a lot of ways, it's easy to believe that both Dwyer and Foligno were victims of circumstance, with Foligno caught in a situation where he had to make a choice between making a hit or getting grief on the bench and he just didn't expect to deliver a head shot. But a head shot is what it was... even if some camera angles aren't exactly the most revealing as to its true nature.

Probably the best point made came from TSN's Craig MacTavish, of Harvey the Hound tongue-pulling-out fame. On Thursday night's telecast, he said (and I am paraphrasing here) that if it comes to a point where you have to ask yourself repeatedly if it was a head shot or not, it's most likely a head shot. As such, the NHL has a golden opportunity to set a nasty precedent and curtail these blind-side hits before an even larger epidemic befalls the league. Like the first snowflake of winter, these things have a tendency to snowball before you know it and the league can save itself a lot of criticism and headaches by getting it right this time. A 10-game suspension is strict, but justified in this context.

Rule 48 of the league rulebook states that an illegal check to the head is characterized by "a lateral or blind side hit to an opponent where the head is targeted and/or the principle point of contact..." Foligno may not have meant to hit Dwyer in the head, but it did happen, making it the principle point of contact. Supplementary discipline is thus required, especially taking into account the fact that these incidents have become this year's Edmonton Oilers of hits... the flavour of the week if you will.

No, Foligno is not a repeat offender, but neither was Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson when he got a two-game ban for his hit from behind on Buffalo Sabre Jason Pominville. All things taken into account, the NHL would be justified in coming down harder on Foligno for the simple reason that they have a chance to nip this thing right in the bud right now, by making an example out of Foligno.

Hits from behind have gotten to the point where they are byproducts of an even larger problem: a lack of respect. There's already a penalty in place for checking from behind, but it doesn't work. The illegal-check-to-the-head penalty of the NHL's is brand new, relatively speaking, meaning players don't know where the line is. Show them. If a player like Foligno can get 10 games for an illegal check to the head, anyone can. That's where respect for other players begins... when it's your neck - and head - on the line.