Also different in the Anisomov hit (from the Savard hit) is Cooke leaves his feet to connect with the bigger player’s head and Cooke’s arm is out a lot quicker for basically an elbow.

Another interesting one to look at would be Donald Brashear on Blair Betts. In both instances, Cooke and Brashear delivered shoulders to the heads from the blindside, and in both instances the player being hit had already delivered the puck, Savard with a shot, Betts with a dump in, and in both instances the player delivering the hit had ample opportunity to let up but chose to follow through with the hit.

“Brashear delivered a shoulder hit to an unsuspecting player,” NHL Senior Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell said in a statement. "It is also my opinion that the hit was delivered late and targeted the head of his opponent, causing significant injury.

SOURCE

I guess the difference is whether or not you think Cooke’s hit was late or not. Its hard for me to tell but it looks as if the puck was already on goal by the time Cooke delivered the hit. Brashear’s hit was definitely a step or two later, but I thought the rest of the reasoning from Campbell was worth noting.

The rule will make no difference in the suspensions. The only way to make a difference is to replace Campbell.

The Drury hit doesn’t belong here at all… he never had the puck so it’s obviously an illegal play that was missed by officials.

On the other one, the “league ruled Cooke deliberately checked Anisimov in the head area.” Maybe it’s the small jump? Maybe it’s throwing the arm out? Who knows. What they really need is more thorough explanations of what exactly is illegal every time there’s a suspension and then what’s not illegal when there isn’t.

I think Cooke should have been suspended and that they wouldn’t have had a very hard time passing it off to the PA as a justified suspension

Thanks for gathering these videos in one place so they can be compared. I fail to see any fundamental differences between Cooke-Savard, Cooke-Anisimov and Richards-Booth. Was the official NHL story on Cooke-Anisimov that Cooke was suspended for a “vicious” hit? If so, that set a precedent and should have resulted in another suspension for Cooke-Savard; more so when you consider the “repeat offender” tag. And what about the “intent to injure” charge? Hasn’t the NHL used this reasoning before for suspensions? It’s hrd to imagine a more obvious “intent to injure” than driving your shoulder (or elbow, it really doesn’t matter) into the head of a player who clearly doesn’t see it coming.

Kukla had this up:

"What I tried to convince the hockey ops staff was to take it outside of the current rule,’’ Chiarelli said. "Use the repeat offender criteria and implement an infraction on an intent to injure. That infraction and the repeat offender should distinguish it from the Richards hit. They didn’t want to.’’

So if you injure someone on an interference — not a roughing or elbowing call — then you can suspend him? Interference is all about body position and impedance, not brutality. I don’t see a connection here between the on-ice call and supplementary discipline. Maybe I need more morning coffee.

“Use the repeat offender criteria and implement an infraction on an intent to injure. That infraction and the repeat offender should distinguish it from the Richards hit. They didn’t want to.’’

That is exactly what the league should have done and didn’t. Or maybe the hockey ops staff just came to the conclusion that Cooke just is an idiot and not out to hurt anybody.

Cooke is a dirty player doing what dirty players do. His arm was out and it’s not exactly a coincidence that Savard happens to be Boston’s star player. Mike Richards’ hit (as bad it as it was) was a good hockey play by a Selke-nominated player. Cooke’s was a dirty move by a dirty player.

I know that you shouldn’t judge hits by the injuries that result, but there is nothing good about a concussion. Savard might not play for the rest of the season and maybe it’s even the end of his career for all we know. It’s unacceptable for these dirty players to keep getting away with this sort of stuff.