Another Questionable Head Shot: Ryan Malone Crunches Campoli at LinesMaker

Another Questionable Head Shot: Ryan Malone Crunches Campoli

Per­haps Bren­dan Shana­han will have some more work to do tonight. In Que­bec City as the Cana­di­ens and Light­ning were doing bat­tle, Tampa Bay’s Ryan Mal­one caught Montreal’s Chris Cam­poli wheel­ing around the net with his head down, check­ing him in the head and putting him on the ice. Montreal’s Josh Gorges took up for Cam­poli drop­ping the gloves with Mal­one in a fight that Mal­one left Gorges a bit bloodied. You can see video of the hit here.

Shana­han has been more than doing his part to get things cleaned up around the league regard­ing head shots, cheap shots, and hits from behind, but he’s got a conun­drum on his hands here. This hit pro­vides for a bit more debate as Cam­poli appears to dip his shoul­der at the last sec­ond turn­ing what could’ve been a shoulder-to-shoulder hit into a shoulder-to-head hit.

Play­ers do have to have more con­trol of their body and how they dish out hits, but at this kind of speed and these sorts of reac­tions from play­ers, can Mal­one be pun­ished for a last sec­ond move by his oppo­nent? On the flip side of that, Shana­han could rule that Cam­poli came around with his head at the same level no mat­ter what and Mal­one could’ve done some­thing to hit him differently.

One way or another, Shana­han will have some­thing new to delib­er­ate on. Tampa Bay won’t play another game until Fri­day night, open­ing night for the Light­ning, so he’ll have time to get things sorted out. This time, Shana­han might have his tough­est call to make in decid­ing how play­ers han­dle them­selves (or don’t) on the ice.

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