Montreal forward Max Pacioretty says the NHL compared his hit on Kris Letang to the one Matt Cooke put on Marc Savard in 2010.
League disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan says the NHL did nothing of the sort.
That’s the crux of the “war of words” between Pacioretty and Shanahan, according to the Canadian Press.
“We didn’t bring it up, (Shanahan) brought it up,” said Pacioretty while explaining what was said during his disciplinarian hearing. “You can ask my agent (Alec Schall). He was on the phone. Ask the GM (Pierre Gauthier). It happened.”
Pacioretty was suspended three games for checking Letang in the head, but Shanahan says the Cooke-on-Savard hit wasn’t used as a comparable during the hearing.
“I said very clearly, I am not comparing it to Cooke-Savard,” Shanahan said last week on TSN Radio 990 in Montreal.
Anyway, the story isn’t really about the Pacioretty-Letang incident versus the Cooke-Savard one. It’s more about whether a comparison was actually made. But for the record, here are the two hits:
Pacioretty thinks there’s a clear difference between the hits.
“Savard’s a lefty coming across. He has no idea Cooke’s coming from the other side of the ice,” he said.
Letang, on the other hand, saw the hit coming, according to Pacioretty.
Hey, remember when everyone was falling over themselves to pat Shanahan on the back for his tough-on-crime rulings? Yeah, those days are done.
“They’re doing the best they can to crack down, but it’s not consistent,” said Pacioretty.
