NHL won’t reveal players warned for diving

Filip Forsberg of the Nashville Predators was given an embellishment penalty on Tuesday night in their loss to the Calgary Flames. “I don’t even know what I was called for,” he said, after the game.

But it’s in the box score, for all to see. The referees felt he embellished.

Alex Ovechkin also embellished, rather egregiously, to draw a penalty against the Montreal Canadiens. He wasn’t penalized for it, so no mention in the box score.

Did the NHL take notice? Did the League issue a warning to Ovechkin to not, you know, make a complete mockery of its game officials?

Only the Washington Capitals and Ovechkin will tell us.

According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, the NHL will not reveal which players were warned for diving:

Remember: the Hockey Operations department decides every Monday on diving incidents from the previous week; whether to hand out warnings, or, after the first offence, fines. The NHL has decided not to make the warnings public. Individual players and teams can reveal if desired, but the league will not.

Now, this is in keeping with how the Dept. of Player Safety operates. Players are warned about hits that are on the edge of legality (soon to be retitled “Live. Die. Repeat”) all the time, through conversations with player safety officials. But it’s only the fines and suspensions that are made public, and one assumes the same standard will be applied to diving.

The question is whether that’s the right approach for embellishment.

Revealing the warnings would let the fans know you’re serious about a crackdown. Let the fans know that you’re watching a meal ticket like Ovechkin taking pratfalls during games, and that you’re not content to watch it. Because we’re not convinced the League’s actually going to follow through on these new regulations.

Then again, warnings could be more effective when the perps know the next dive gets them a $2,000 fine and their name in a press release as an embellisher.