Habs' Michael Cammalleri Suspended 1 Game
They say you can’t go home again and the NHL has made sure that Michael Cammalleri will have to wait a tad longer before he can do just that after they announced today that he is suspended for 1 game after his stick work (arguably in retaliation to a broadside hit) on Islanders rookie Nino Niederreiter.
According to the NHL’s press release:
TORONTO (October 4, 2010) – Montreal Canadiens forward Michael
Cammalleri has been suspended for one game for an incident involving New York Islanders player Nino Niederreiter in NHL pre-season game #92 on Saturday, Oct. 2.
Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and based on
his average annual salary, Cammalleri will forfeit $32,258.06. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.
The incident occurred at 16:52 of the second period. He was assessed
a major penalty for slashing and a game misconduct (Rule 61.5) for his
actions. Cammalleri will miss the Canadiens season opener at Toronto on
October 7.
After reviewing the video many times, I can kind of see how Cammalleri could take offense to the hit, especially when you add the comments by teammates such as Tomas Plekanec to the effect that Niederreiter was looking to hit someone all night long and was doing so with a higher than necessary stick. However, Cammalleri, a veteran, should have known better and had every opportunity to cease and decist after the first high stick, the second cross check, as well as the ensuing warning from the referee to stop, before he slashed at the Islanders’ prospect’s ankle.
Many of Cammalleri’s critics were up in arms citing the elbow that Cammalleri served Martin Havlat 2 playoffs ago as a precedence that went unpunished. The NHL responded with the 1 game suspension by officially putting the Montreal forward on notice that any similar actions would lead them to consider him a habitual offender and the ensuing punishment would be more severe.
The Michael Cammalleri that has endeared himself to the Montreal faithful has not given any of them any indication that this was part of his game and I can’t foresee number 13 repeating this brain-cramp in the near future.
That is, unless, the usual complaints about how the Habs stars are left to fend for themselves since they have no real “enforcer” to take care of such liberties that Niederreiter tried to take with Cammalleri are true. In this case, it would be nice to see the likes of Travis Moen, Ryan White (if he makes the final cut( and Maxim Lapierre (fresh off summer boxing lessons AND his first preseason fight Vs Mike Weber) Take care of the “void” left by Georges Laraque.
But then again, I wonder if Nino Niederreiter would have accepted the RSVP that Laraque would have mailed him as per the Montreal born “code”
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