The Athletic’s Joe Smith offers the Tampa Bay Lightning’s take on the incident between Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin and Tampa Bay Lightning forward Mathieu Joseph:
For Larkin to punch Joseph like that was a dirty play.
“Absolutely,” Stamkos said. “Sucker punching a guy while the play is going on? Obviously, he’s mad about the borderline hit. But there’s different ways you can go about it. You can grab a guy and then punch him in the face. But it’s just an unsuspecting guy. It’s a sucker punch, whether it’s hard or not. That’s what it was.”
Larkin will likely hear from the NHL Department of Player Safety.
“I mean, a punch with a glove on — I don’t know, maybe I’m old school — I don’t think I am,” Blashill said. “There’s a lot of punches without gloves on, I think it’s way different if a guy hits a guy with his gloves off than with his glove on.”
Joseph played just two shifts after serving his penalty. I asked Cooper if Joseph was OK, and he said, “We hope so.” Joseph seemed fine walking out of the building, but we’ll find out more Saturday.
I am not going to read Bolts BS, I saw enough of the play, with my glasses on (They should be mandated for on ice officials). As far as the suspension goes, Wings Management from the Top Down should raise %&*. These clowns deciding on suspensions are all Ex NHLers given a Job they have no Mental Competence in and certainly would never have any qualifications in.
This is a Group Hug were they see who they can get back at,who they like and dislike, who they fear, player’s wives , kids, pets. It is a Dumb Boys Club, post retirement. Rules on how to play dumb and not caught come from midget himself. Even the owners of most teams are muted as only 2 or 3 senile old crooks pull his uh strings,etc.
It actually runs all through hockey from Tim Bits on up. Coaches, Ass Coaches, Team somethings all get their kids on the team.
Little Runts, Big Runts all the same sad crap they think is not seen. It would be fun to watch a Devellano take a run at these Cattle, but why bother. This mess will not be even addressed until after the runt goes back to the planet he came from but even the New Commie will get his marching orders tattooed on his butt before he is put in the NHL stable.
I am worried about Larkin, I hope this BS didn’t aggravate the old injury. Don’t get me started on who sent the orders to test out Larkin’s back. Is Tom Wilson available???