Kaleta Being the Rat that He Is

As initially argued up by TSN's James Duthie on Wednesday night, Buffalo Sabre Patrick Kaleta is quite the hypocrite. If you caught his interview following Chicago Blackhawk Niklas Hjalmarsson's hit from behind on Jason Pominville on Monday, along with some apparent b.s. on respecting one another in the NHL, he had this to say: "We're a team here and it will get taken care of either with the league or I think we play them Saturday, so we'll make a point that you can't be taking hits like that against one of our leaders and one of our better players on our team."

Now, before this somewhat veiled threat was uttered, Kaleta was a lot of things... a pest, a rat, maybe just one or two rungs below New York Ranger Sean Avery and Ottawa Senator Jarkko Ruutu on the NHL's most-hated scale. But a hypocrite? Due to a lack of evidence, no one in their right minds could make such a claim out of fear of being sued, because, as much as I hate to admit it, being among the league's least-skilled players can still earn someone a pretty penny to pay for some pretty expensive legal help. But here is the indisputable proof ladies and gentlemen: Kaleta's antics on Wednesday night against the New Jersey Devils:

Hell, forget Wednesday night... take your pick of any of Kaleta's numerous indiscretions over the years, like this one hit on the Philadelphia Flyers' Jared Ross that led to a suspension last season:

There's little use defending Hjalmarsson's hit on Pominville as it wasn't exactly clean. As mentioned in an earlier post, the two-game ban he received seems about right. But there's even less use in ever again defending Kaleta, whether it be through words as a blogger or on the ice as one of his teammates, because as he has proven so beautifully this past week he'll bring you down along with him as he makes a fool out of himself.

The Sabres do indeed play the Blackhawks on Saturday, but Kaleta had better circle the next Saturday instead, because that's the date (October 23) that the Sabres play the Devils again. I'm not saying it will happen, but if he's put in a position where he's forced into making a decision as to whether or not to drop the gloves, there should be no hesitation on his part. If he can stand up for himself and face the music then, only then will the one iota of respect he deserves be restored.

A Brief History of Recent Hits in the NHL

As you've all probably heard by now, Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson was given a two-game suspension for Monday's hit on the Buffalo Sabres' Jason Pominville, which probably sounds about right, all things considered. It clearly constituted "a check delivered on a player who is not aware of the impending hit, therefore unable to protect or defend himself, and contact is made on the back part of the body," as per the NHL's rule 43.1.

However, it's interesting to note how this specific hit stacks up against other notable ones from the past few years and to take note of the league's consistency on handing down punishments or lack thereof. For example, in a 2006 incident, Washington Capitals superstar Alexander Ovechkin similarly hit then-Sabre Daniel Briere from behind as well, and no suspension was served, although he apparently did get a boarding call on the play. It's clear that he invoked the much-forgotten-about and unwritten "bankable star" clause in the rulebook that no one ever really cites. Curious, that.

And then there's Ottawa Senator Chris Neil and his hit on then-Sabre Chris Drury in 2007, which also didn't result in a suspension. There's less of a mystery here, though, as this hit took place before the well-documented Matt Cooke hit on Marc Savard, which led to the formulation of the "Illegal Check to the Head" section of the rulebook (I just love the fact that "check to the head" has to be qualified by the word illegal, don't you?). As such, Neil got off scot-free, while Drury got a concussion, with the NHL brass still three years away from first getting a clue that Don Cherry's Rock'Em Sock'Em Hockey video series does not constitute good masturbation source material.

There are several key takeaways from the case study, with the most notable one being that if you're a Buffalo Sabre, you had better keep your head up at all times, because goons seem to be attracted to that bright-yellow-buffalo emblem like moths to a flame. Beyond that, there is the undeniable deep-seeded issue that a lack of respect between players in the NHL is endemic. I mean, just looking at Ovechkin's latest commercial below, I gotta say it must be hard for even his teammates to look at him the same way.

All things being equal, none of those hits compare to then-Philadelphia Flyer Steve Downie on Dean McAmmond from the 2007 pre-season. Downie was given a 20-game suspension, the fifth-longest in NHL history, if memory (wikipedia) serves me correctly, which is sad because Downie had never played a regular-season NHL game at that stage of his career and he was only trying to make a name for himself. As a result, it's easy to believe that one huge reason the suspension was so large was due to his laying out a more-esteemed player in the league. If it was the other way around, if McAmmond had hit Downie, I would guess that the suspension, if there would have been one at all, wouldn't have been for nearly as long... then again, I can't even imagine any NHL player hitting a rookie in that fashion, which is probably more telling than any video, but, that being said, here you go: