Why did NHL wait 48 hours before giving Anders Lee hit hearing?
It was 2:24 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.
New York Islanders center Anders Lee went hard to the boards to chase a puck that was played by St. Louis defenseman Carl Gunnarsson. Lee’s elbow connected with Gunnarsson’s head, dropping the defenseman to the ice in a heap. He left the game, did not return, and was diagnosed with a concussion. Lee wasn’t penalized on the play.
Forty-eight hours later, after it was widely reported Lee wouldn’t receive a hearing from the NHL Department of Player Safety, the Islanders center indeed is on the docket for the hit.
This isn’t unprecedented. Under previous discipline czar Brendan Shanahan, we’d see decisions on hearings take their sweet time as the NHL waited to check on the health of an injured player.
But you’d almost never hear player safety sources say a hearing wasn’t coming only to have one called for a hit.
So what gives?
According to the department, it was a miscommunication. Some members felt the issue was put to bed on Saturday with no hearing, but department head Stephan Quintal has the option to call a hearing right up until the New York Islanders play again on Tuesday night. So it’s possible he hadn’t made up his mind.
Of course, the optics on this are going to point to the idea that he changed his mind, or perhaps had it changed. The initial word from the NHL through media like our podcasting buddy Jeff Marek was that Lee simply was bracing for a hit and the elbow to the head was inadvertent – hence the lack of penalty on the play.
Did Quintal eventually see something different? Did the injury play a role? Did someone – say at the Board of Governors’ meeting today – lean on him?
Again, the official line from Player Safety is that it’s just a big miscommunication. But confusion on the inside leads to confusion on the outside, and as Arthur Staple notes, maybe this was something the Islanders would have liked to know before leaving for a road trip.
