The Puck Stops Here

Chris Simon of the New York Islanders has been suspended for 30 games for his attempted stomp on Jarkko Ruutu of the Pittsburgh Penguins ankle. It was a cheap uncalled for move on Simon's part, but if it got the longest suspension in NHL history, one would think it would be at least arguably the worst piece of gratuitous violence in NHL history. The Simon stomp is not the worst violence in NHL history by any reasonable measure. The mitigating circumstance is that Chris Simon is a repeat offender. This is Simon's eighth NHL suspension.

Simon was suspended five pre-season games in 1994 for a stick swinging incident with Dennis Vial of the Ottawa Senators. Simon was suspended for three games in 1997 for a racial slur against Mike Grier, then of the Edmonton Oilers. Simon was suspended two games in 2000 for a cross check to the throat of Pittsburgh Penguins defender Peter Popovic. Simon was suspended two games for an elbow to Anders Eriksson, then a Florida Panther. In 2004, he had two different two game suspensions. One for a cross check and punch to Ruslan Fedotenko of the Tampa Bay Lightning and one for kneeing Sergei Zubov of the Dallas Stars. Last season, he was suspended 25 games for stick swinging incident with Ryan Hollweg of the New York Rangers. That is a long list of offenses.

Simon has become an embarrassment to the NHL with his repeated goonery. Normal goonery is encouraged my many NHL coaches, but there is a thin line a player should not cross and Simon crosses it repeatedly. The NHL hopes that with this suspension, Simon will basically go away. Simon is 35 years old (turns 36 in January) and has only scored three points in 26 games this year. He is barely hanging onto his NHL career. When not suspended he has minimal value to the Islanders. When suspended he has none.

The NHL is cracking down on players with longer suspensions. This is true of your average player in the relatively meaningless regular season. It's not true of a superstar player in the Stanley Cup playoffs. In last years playoffs, Chris Pronger of the Anaheim Ducks was suspended for an elbow to Tomas Holmstrom of the Detroit Red Wings and again for an elbow to Dean McAmmond of the Ottawa Senators. Pronger missed a game for each suspension. Pronger was clearly a repeat offender. Twice within less than a month's time he was suspended for roughly the same play. But since a prolonged absence of Pronger might have determined who won the Stanley Cup, his suspensions were short. So the moral of this story is you can expect a much more lengthy suspension today than in the past (especially if you are a repeat offender) unless you are a superstar in a really important game.