Nov 28 Double Standard? Ovechkin vs Kaleta Hits

Montreal Canadiens Georges Laraque asked the question after his 5 game suspension was announced, if Kronwall had done the knee on knee hit to him, would Detroit's Kronwall also have been suspended for the same amount of time. His position is that there is a double standard in the NHL that seems to allow misconduct by the NHL's star players to go without League intervention, while enforcers or "lesser" star caliber players feel the full brunt of the NHL's wrath.

In Washington on November 25th, Alex Ovechkin was given a 5 minute major penalty for boarding, and a game misconduct,  for his hit on the Sabres' Patrick Kaleta. 2 days later, Kaleta ends up doing the same thing to Jared Ross from the Flyers. Now, you can argue about the placement of Ovechkin's body versus that of Kaleta, in that Kaleta hit Ross straight "in the numbers", however I would argue that this was strictly a result of where the players happened to be turning in that instance. Patrick Kaleta never saw Ovechkin, and was in the process of turning away from the boards when he was pummeled back into them. Jared Ross, on the other hand, saw Katela coming, and unfortunately actually turned away much in the same way Bob Fenelli did when he saw Michael Liambus. Patrick Katela, unlike Ovechkin, has been suspended for 2 games for his hit on Ross.

Was Georges Laraque correct in his criticism of the NHL? Here are the videos so that you can make up your own mind.

Here is what Patrick Kaleta did to Jared Ross, who only has 13 NHL games to his credit:

Here is what Alex Ovechkin had done to Patrick Kaleta 2 nights earlier:

Tags: BGL \ boarding \ Georges Laraque \ Jared Ross \ NHL \ Patrick Kaleta