You're seriously on the wrong team if you want to whine about getting hit, Mr. Selanne.
As the Red Wings endure their 2nd fall vacation early in this NHL regular season, the Anaheim Ducks seem less than sunny about one of their star players getting hit. Niklas Kronwall delivered a brutal--but very much legal--hit to the Finnish Flash which left him seeing Swedish stars. Selanne, along with basically all of the Anaheim organization is up in arms about the travesty of letting the hit go unpunished. What exactly they think the league could punish Kronner for is far beyond me. Any rational hockey fan, Wingnut or not, who looks at all the angles of this hit has to know it was clean. The hit was not lateral or blindside, so it is well within the guidelines of a legal hit. Kronwall also explained perfectly the reason why his feet left the ice after contact. Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said that Kronwall "jumped" which is completely false. Kronwall explained that Selanne gave the look that he was going to finish his check heading toward the puck. Kronwall then braced and prepared to add extra thrust with his legs on impact so as to not be knocked over by the force of the hit. When Selanne then decided not to finish the check, all of Kronner's wound up energy had to go somewhere, and as he pushed toward Selanne, the forward motion mixed with the force of his collision brought him off the ice momentarily.
It's called physics, Randy. Learn some.
I also loved how the other complaint out of Anaheim was the supposed lop-sidedness of penalties--not just during the game on Saturday, but apparently every time the Ducks play in Detroit. Talk about comedic gold. How many times has that line passed by a Wings fan's lips about every other team in the league? I've done it a couple times, on extreme occasions where it might be warranted, but I think most of it is simply chalked up to the overall ineptitude of league officials. They all suck equally, we just see it more when it's hurting our team's chances of winning.
Speaking of winning, Detroit's been doing a decent job of it recently, and I have to say I'm happy with our start record-wise. I just hate that we're waiting another week and losing all our momentum again. I haven't looked too far ahead on the skid, but I bet we have a number of back-to-back games to make up for this later. Really looking forward to it. Honest.
At least everyone will be thinking of Kronwall.
