With the NHL season nearing an end and games continuing with thrill and intensity, let’s just say that some brawls are bound to hit the ice. With every team trying to clinch their favorable position in the points table and clearly hitting every chance to get the puck delivered to the net, it’s the game of hockey where every shift matters—with tempers running high and tensions amongst the players boiling hot! And that’s exactly what we have witnessed so far in the heated face-off between the Vancouver Canucks and the Minnesota Wild. Perhaps what was about to begin as a typical ice battle between the two quickly escalated into something bigger—call it something wild.
A 3-2 win for the Wilds at the Roger’s Arena on Saturday and Kenin Lankinen’s 30 saves, perhaps, weren’t enough for the Canucks to seal the victory. “We didn’t really generate much towards the second half. They locked it down pretty good and that’s kind of the story of our year. We get it to overtime and just don’t find that extra one,” said Jake DeBrusk while gifting Vancouver a goal. But this wasn’t where the frustration began or things got heated up. Canucks losing or the Wild smashing their rivals? Nope. Talk about a physical confrontation that left the hockey world questioning not just the actions but the very framework designed by the NHL to protect its players!
Well, a flashpoint that ignited the long-standing debates about player safety and the league’s response to such actions. And it’s no surprise that this very moment became a key point of conversation in the latest Sportsnet podcast, where Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas opened up about the incident that took place in the Canucks vs. Wild game. But what exactly? “Teddy Blueger got a penalty for, like, putting his, for interfering from the bench. And if you actually read the rule, Blueger could have gotten more of a penalty. But I think the officials in the moment realized exactly what was going on. And they said, Okay, we’re just going to give you a slap in the wrist here. And you could tell the Canucks were really giving it to Trenin as he was taken out of the game and the officials were trying to maintain order. I didn’t like it. I hated it,” Friedman clearly stated.
Let’s break it down. Starting with where things took a nasty turn and clashed. It was the Wild’s Yakov Trenin who threw a late punch straight at the defenseman Derek Forbort’s face from the opponent’s team, and that was the move that didn’t just cross the line but started the whole thing. Call it more of a cheap shot that caught everybody off guard! And made Friedman further quote on how big fighters of the league like Luke Gazdic, a former NHL enforcer whose main role was just to fight and protect his teammates, and Forbort’s agent, Ben Hankinson, were upset about the situation. “This is a guy who had 200 fights in the NHL. Like nobody knows more about fighting than Parros,” he further mentioned of George Parros and how even he disapproved of the unnecessary punch!And for the Canucks? Well, they were all fired up too. And when it was about defending their fellow teammate, one of their players, Teddy Bluegar, ends up getting penalized while he tries to jump off the bench. But hey, that was just a quick highlight of what exactly happened. Call it a recap, but what is the result of the outcome? Trenin wasn’t suspended! Yep. Not even a fine! Now this made Friedman point out an incident from the past where a similar situation didn’t lead to any punishment. Is it justified? Well, that is not the point, but what is that? Should the league have stayed quiet while the rest of the hockey world spoke loudly for what just happened?
Was the NHL responsible for it?
While the incident did spark outrage across the league, the offering of a punishment stuck strictly to the NHL rulebook. And Trenin was just left out simply for what he did. The player received a two-minute minor for unsportsmanlike conduct, a five-minute major for fighting, and a ten-minute misconduct during the game! Now this might not be sufficient for many, but it’s just how the rules are being structured. And if we follow what Rule 46.2 says, a player is only labeled an “aggressor” if they engage once their opponent is defenseless and calls for a suspension only if they are deemed an aggressor more than once in a season. And that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Despite many hating the idea and players calling it the dirtiest thing they have ever witnessed, it is just the rules that are being followed and clearly applied in the situation. For Marcus Pettersson, the punch was “one of the dirtiest things I’ve seen,” and indeed it was, but the league simply didn’t have any provision to suspend Trenin for his one-time act. Now this leaves no pathway for any supplemental discipline, and the incident quietly slips through the holes of the league’s disciplinary system. Well, not because it wasn’t serious, but because of the rules that don’t allow for any kind of subjective judgment!
However, the situation quietly highlights this gap in the system, with many questioning whether there should be flexibility while accounting for intent and context in these kinds of situations. Though a casual punch or an everyday story on ice, but a serious one.
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