USA's Ryan Lindgren Nearly Decapitated Canada's Evan Bouchard at The Hockey World Championships
I've been following the International Ice Hockey Federation's Twitter account for years now, and I've come to find that roughly 365 days a year, there is always some sort of "big" international hockey tournament going on. Everything from the Men's World Juniors, to the Ice Hockey World Championships, to the Women's World Juniors. Then you have the World Juniors at every possible age group. Then you have sled hockey. Then you have the international tournaments that feature lower-ranked countries like your Kazakhstan's, your Hungary's, your Great Britain's. There's always a fucking international hockey tournament of some sort going on.
Even in the midst the NHL Playoffs, USA played Canada in quarterfinals of the Hockey World Championships today. And it's not a bunch of nobody's, or U18 kids playing. It's NHL players. The good ones. Team USA had Matthew Tkachuk on their roster.
Macklin Celebrini was scoring goals for Team Canada this very morning.
Sorry that's all besides the point of this blog. Team USA's roster also featured Ryan Lindgren of the Seattle Kraken. Team Canada has Oiler's defenseman Evan Bouchard. That's the point of this blog.
I think we can all safely agree what the takeaway from this hit should be…
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Yep. That about sums it up.
International refs are much softer than NHL refs. Probably softer than they would need to be. At the same time, if I'm a die hard fan of an NHL team, I don't necessarily hate that in a situation where a crucial member of my team is playing competitive hockey out of season. I've always thought it made appropriate sense for international refs to call a tighter game. And in my humble opinion, which I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with, it can make for a more fun brand of hockey. Less physicality means more open ice. Players are more free to do shit on offense. There's oftentimes more scoring, and more creative playmaking. I don't think I'd want the game called that way all the time (i.e. in the NHL), but for international competition, I kinda like the change of pace.
But you still gotta keep your head up out there, Evan. I know that's a tough spot for both the puck carrier, and the defender. Hockey refs famous allow defenders exactly (????) amount of time after the puck carrier gets rid of the puck to finish their hit. At higher levels of play, with better, more consistent refs, players have a pretty good idea of what is and isn't allowed. But growing up playing hockey, when you're dealing with exceedingly average refs (or in this case, international refs) it's can be a crap shoot whether or not you'd get called on a hit like that.
Now if you hit him as hard as Lindgren did… that really seemed like one of those calls where the outcome decided the punishment. Lindgren left his feet (kind of). He targeted Even Bouchard's head (maybe). But Evan Bouchard was knocked out cold. Had he popped up like nothing happened and continued playing, maybe the refs don't give him the full 5-minutes + game misconduct.
Congrats on your win today, Canada. You were due for one. I'm sure we'll meet again in a couple weeks or something.