Bettman Goes to Bat for the Department of Player Safety and the NHL Playoff Format

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George Parros and Gary Bettman responded to criticism of the NHL player safety process.

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How we doing this week, go.

We're doing, we're doing, we're in the stretch drive.

Every game is important and it's an exciting time to be a hockey fan.

It is unfortunately for Gary Bettman.

He's had to address some issues that have come up recently due to incidents on the ice

and that very home stretch playoff race here that is reignited, that part of the conversation

will get to that later in the show and preview the best games to watch this weekend.

But the biggest story that has continued to bubble up, I think the timing of the GM meetings

did not help.

The situation as far as the Radco-Gutus suspension and the ensuing complaints about how short

it was relative to the impact of the injury and as we know, since then, Austin Matthews

had surgery and he's officially out, when we knew he was out for the season, but it's

a 12 week recovery process.

Yeah, and in 12 weeks, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be playing golf, so that is...

We'll be going to some summer weddings and you'll think about getting back to school

fishing here and there, but whatever the case may be, they will not be playing hockey in

the playoffs at that point.

And yeah, so his season is officially done and obviously the punishment does not fit

the crime.

Let's put it that way.

We talked about this last week and I think what's come out to us in the last six days since

then only reinforces the fact that five games and a telephone hearing, which they announced

before they even knew the extent of the injury by the way when you're supposed to be taking

the extent of the injury and to consider it.

Just rings hollow.

It rings hollow.

Right, and we talked about this last week because the incident was pretty fresh, right?

So now we've had a little bit of time and we have that additional context and, you know,

Parros said a lot about the decision-making process and, you know, they have a careful

consideration and a bunch of different people look at it and they have discussions about

it.

I mean, he sounds like a certain someone else when he says, some of the best guys are

working on this, you know, but he talks about veteran players and that, you know, that

current players should be confident in what this group of people does and how they come

to their conclusions there.

And, you know, Gary Batman went to bat forum as well, you know, basically saying similar

things there and, you know, we've also had other players complain about it when Conor

McDavid, who's like the face of your game essentially said, this isn't right, like how

do you not respond directly to the specifics of those criticisms?

Yeah, I mean, you could talk all you want about the process and how it's supposed to work

and how great minds are involved, but you know what?

If great minds get together and tell me two plus two equals five, I'm still not going

to believe it.

And, ultimately, the proof is in the pudding and the pudding is rotten.

It doesn't pass the smell test.

So if this many people are unhappy with the outcome, then telling me the process is fair,

this doesn't work because the result is what matters the most and you're not, you know,

the algorithm could be fair, but what's coming out on the other end doesn't make sense.

Right.

And I think the argument being made by, you know, Austin Matthews agent and Mick David,

who has the same agent, I believe, they are saying it doesn't really matter about the

whole time-served situation for Radco-Gutus that, you know, five was the max, given how

long it had been since his previous suspension that the impact has to have more weight.

And then Gary Bettman says, well, you all agreed to this in the CBA that this is the process.

And I think that, you know, there's wiggle room here, right?

Yeah.

There's room to say, okay, but if you look at, even though Gary, you know, we've only

had, he said 18 suspensions over the last 15 years for neighing for this specific thing.

And so it doesn't matter how often or how rare it is.

It's a, it's a highly impactful play and injury, subsequent injury.

Like you could, it could only happen once and it would be bad.

And let's also take a step back here.

It's called the Department of Player Safety.

Right.

It's not the Department of Player Protection, you know, for the offender.

Right.

The job is to keep the game safe and to keep the game safe, knee on knee hits as infrequent

as they may or may not be are one of the more dangerous plays in hockey.

So A, you want to do everything you can to deter that from happening.

So you want harsh punishments on knee on knee hits to keep them infrequent.

And then B, to me, if both sides admit something isn't working, like you said, there's wiggle

room.

Both sides can agree that they need some modifications on the fly.

Right.

You know, like I said, if the algorithm says two plus two equals five, that doesn't make

it so.

Right.

Exactly.

I know.

I kind of feel like Marceau-Tome and my cousin Vinnie, it's like, the defense is wrong.

It's here like a distraction, baby.

I know.

I know.

Iconic.

Anyway, I just think that there, yeah, there has to be wiggle room and that, like I said,

if something happens once, that should be enough to have the right kind of response to

it here.

And we know regardless of how long it's been since goodness has been suspended, he has

a history of problematic plays, whether it incurred a suspension or a fine or not, does

not matter.

The history is there.

The play was egregious from every angle that you watch it at.

That play was egregious and you have to be able to look at the spirit of the law and

not the letter of the law in this circumstance.

There was no justification.

There was no excuse.

It wasn't like, oh, yeah, Matthew sat his head down or it was a split second.

This was just a plain out flagrant dirty play.

And like you said, no matter what angle you look at it, no matter how you try to rationalize

it, it all just did not add up to anything other than this was a flagrantly dirty play

of star player got injured and is lost for this season as a result.

And let's even take it a step further.

If this happened in November instead of in March, you're talking about a guy missing almost

half the season as a result of this injury.

So you really have to look at it that way because just because it happened toward the end

of the season into a team that's not going to make the playoffs doesn't matter, no,

not matter.

It should not matter at all.

This is a situation where the guy is going to miss three months of a six month season.

If this happens, you know, in November or December, you're talking about almost half the

year and it just the punishment has to fit the crime and it doesn't.

It doesn't even come close.

And I think even even acknowledging this, the fact that they decided on a telephone hearing

before they knew the extent of the injury or the fact that if they did know the extent

of the injury, they kind of ignored it.

But alone is something that could be easily adjusted and fixed without redoing the CBA.

Right.

And I think the appeals process for this is also inherently flawed, right?

So when Gary Batman is the place you go to to appeal these decisions and Batman has

to own the player safety department as part of his responsibilities as commissioner, right?

So he's responsible ultimately for the hire of parose to lead that department and for

the success of that department.

When he has to go to the board of governors and say, I'm a good commissioner for the league

because I do all of this for you, right?

Like that doesn't work, right?

No, it doesn't work, but what does work and why Gary Batman remains commissioner and

has been so successful?

Is he can turn to the owners and say, I've made you a lot of money over the last 30 years

and he's right.

I mean, he's correct.

Yeah, yeah.

But let's also face this, if you end up with unfair suspensions and dangerous plays in the

lead because you're not taking care of this aspect of your job, that hurts the reputation

of the league and that can cost the league money.

Right.

And I think when your product, aka the players, are complaining very loudly, that affects

the money side of things, right?

Yeah, absolutely can.

And it can affect how smoothly the next CBA negotiations go if you think about it.

Yeah, I mean, I think it should.

And I think the players should demand a reconsideration of this process.

But the GM meetings had more to say than just about this one incident and player safety.

And we are going to talk about gold tender interference and the playoff format, which is,

you know, a whole other fun ball, a wax, we'll get to that coming up next.

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So the NHL GM meetings talked about more than trying to defend the player safety department

here.

You talked about goalie reviews once again, because as we well know, nobody knows what

gold tender interference is.

And it's all based on vibes and you know it when you see it, right?

It's right now, what was that in math, it's undefined, you know, it's an imaginary number.

It's an imaginary number, it's, you know, it's what was at the square root of zero was undefined

was that it, I'm trying to remember, but yeah, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

There's no consistency.

And look, I understand Gary Bettman is going to publicly defend that and say it works,

but if, you know, if you look at two or three replays at random with almost identical things

happening and different outcomes being called on the ice and after review, you know enough

to say that nobody knows what goalie interference is and the league at the very least needs to

be consistent.

I don't, it almost doesn't matter what they say it is within certain parameters, but consistency

is the ultimate thing because if they're consistent, the players know what they can and cannot do.

Everybody knows what to expect.

What's going to be overturned?

What's appealable that you have a decent chance of winning right now?

It's all undefined.

Yeah, it's interesting because Bettman, you know, just defending the video replay process

and system in all of this as it relates to goal tender interference reviews.

And I don't begrudge them the difficulty of defining it and it is hard.

Like, I don't, I don't disagree with that.

It is sometimes hard to tell and it's hard to tell when you're looking at something full

speed versus slow mo, right?

All of these things affect your perception of whether or not a play is goal tender interference

or not.

But the problem to your point is the consistency where it's hard to suss out exactly what

they're going to call and what they're, they're not and what I found really questionable

in how Bettman was talking about this is that he says like, if you look at the body of

work, I think our video replay system not only has been a leader among the sports leagues

because all the other systems are modeled on ours, it has held up extraordinarily well.

Yeah, you're going to get calls that some people disagree with, but it works.

Like I don't think the NHL play review system is lauded amongst all these sports.

I just don't, I think that's categorically untrue.

Yeah, I mean, I haven't heard anybody praising it.

No, what sports commissioners and executives do behind closed doors and don't make public,

I can't say, but I have not heard anybody, I mean, I guess Bettman is saying imitation

is the highest form of flattery.

So they're all copying us.

So they're for like it, but I mean, you're, you're an NFL guy, is pass interference call,

like is that just as difficult to suss out as goal tender interference?

Maybe what is a catch?

Yeah, what is that category in the NFL right now?

Nobody can tell you what a catch is and what a catch isn't.

So yeah, maybe it is working just as well as the NHL, but not well, poorly, but just as well as the national

I know it's insane.

So, you know, to be continued on that aspect of it as well.

My personal feeling on the matter is that there needs to be more attention paid to goal

tending from a rules and, you know, support perspective in terms of what the like rules of

of goal tending are like so that goalies can train themselves to play in that way and how that

is affected by the league's desire to have more scoring and how do you protect the goal

tenders in that circumstance?

I think there's a lot to work on on that front in terms of that balance between having goalies

be a robust position that have a little freedom to do their thing, but also protect them and

also have scoring.

So, I understand it's a complex problem, but I think what they're doing now isn't enough.

No, the other thing that's, I think less of a complex problem is the playoff format.

Which Gary Betman continues to defend this division rival format for it in terms of who plays

who in the first round.

And I think that much like with the evolution of the game with how overtime works and adding

the shootout and all of this and, you know, how they evolved from having an all-star game

every year to getting a little stale.

Let's do this world cup thing and we'll go to the Olympics and we'll do it again.

But the game has to evolve, right?

And so we evolved into this playoff format and now it's stale.

And we've seen it shortcomings and it's okay to say that.

We've said it about other things in the game.

Why can't we say that this is now stale and it's not working the way it originally did?

Yeah, I mean, look, there is no perfect playoff format.

And just like any other system that you're trying to fix, you're always fixing the problems with

the last format and that creates new problems.

It's time to create new problems.

Okay, I mean, the system is stale when the LA Kings and the Edmonton Oilers meet four years

in a row in the playoff, you know, and here's the thing.

I look at right now the central division in the NFL, the three teams with the best record

in the league at various points this year have been in the central division.

And two of them are going to go head to head in round one.

Yeah, the playoffs started today.

Yeah, yeah, well, I think it's almost a lock that two of them have to go head to head

and we don't know which two and who's going to have home ice.

But, you know, two of those teams are going to face each other in the first round of the playoffs.

And that is not a fair reward that the team with the third best record out of 32 gets to play

the team with the second best record out of 32 in the first round of the playoffs.

That's not rewarding regular season success.

Right. And when you look at the different divisions, there's such a, you know,

disparity between them where the top team in the Pacific is in 14th place in the NHL.

14th. And so that skews everything as well.

So you have, you know, Anaheim gets to play Utah who, you know, who's so much better

than Anaheim, but Anaheim gets home ice advantage because they're arbitrarily top of the

Pacific division, even though Utah is a much better team, standings wise, right?

Yeah. And that's, that's why this is not working this year.

And I think it's okay to put a, like a term limit on some of these things where you say,

this is our new playoff format. We're going to do one, you know, top eight, you know,

one verse eight, two verse seven. We're going to do that. And we're going to do it for 10 years.

And then we're going to change it again. And just know that there's an expiration date on it

because we know it's going to get stale. And that's how, how I think you need to approach it.

Theoretically, it should be renovated every time there's a CBA. Yeah.

And both sides just have to be negotiated. And you talk about one versus eight in the conference.

I'd be fine with that. I'd even be fine with one versus 16 to a versus.

In the holy, I mean, what does, what difference does it make?

I mean, there's costs involved there with cost involved, but it's the fairest system.

It is the fairest system. I mean, I think it would be fun, theoretically.

And different matchups every year too.

Right. Right. You know, I mean, when we talk about that Edmonton L.A. matchup, at least,

you know, for now, the one saving grace of all this is that it would be Vegas versus Edmonton

in the first round now. So yay, we get that win. But, you know, I just, it is absolutely stale.

And something needs to give here. I think the only reason why the East playoff matchups look

better is that there's been a little bit more upheaval. And there's some different teams

in the mix that are that are affecting it. But even like Tampa versus Montreal on the first round,

I'm bored. I'm already bored. And the way the standings are right now, those matchups will

change by tonight, let alone. Sure. Or a week from now or, you know, in a month when the season

is over. Well, speaking of that, we got to play some games to figure all that out. And there are

some good ones this weekend. So we will talk about the best ones to watch coming up next.

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All right, so looking at these big matchups, one of them that we were just talking about in the

playoff race, they face each other again because they're division rivals, right? So the stars will be

visiting the Wild on Saturday, which could end up being a playoff preview here.

Yeah, very well. This could be the first round matchup. In fact, as of right now,

this would be the first round matchup, and it's two of the best teams in the league right now.

They are separated by six points, and look, this is going to be one heck of a game. No question

about that. Yeah, and with all the changes that Minnesota in particular has made this season to try

and tweak things to give them the right formula, I think we've had enough of time since the trade

deadline and since the Quinn Hughes deal that they should be jelling, and this would be a pretty

good indicator of what this wild team is going to look like. No doubt, no doubt, and again, it's getting

that chemistry right for the playoffs that is so critical. Absolutely, is now going back to

the playoff race and how the individual standings will look out versus the wild card here for those

top three versus the wild card. This Boston at Detroit game is super important, right?

Yeah, both teams need this and the Atlantic division standings are so tight right now,

Boston and Detroit hold the two wild cards, and they have the same number of points. So you're

talking about a very important game, and these two teams going head to head on national television

in the United States should be one heck of a game. Yeah, and the tiebreaker right now is at

regulation wins, and so if Detroit wins this game, like that would even them up with regulation

wins there and give them the points edge. So it's an extremely important game. I'd say a

slightly more so for Detroit in these circumstances here, but should be a good one again,

you know, original six can't go wrong with that. Looking at some of the other games,

there's a whole lot of back-to-backs happening right now with the condensed schedule, especially

post Olympics. I think every team has a back-to-back almost every week for the remainder of the season

here, and the Columbus Blue Jackets are part of that where they face the Kraken on Saturday,

which is the first half of that back-to-back super important game for both teams.

Yeah, the Kraken are right now one point out of a wildcard. They are five points back of third

place in the Pacific, but seven points out of first place. So, you know, that Pacific division,

not the strongest division in the league, but certainly bunched up pretty tight.

Seattle needs the win badly, and, you know, so does Columbus right now. They are barely in the

playoff on a tiebreaker because they've played one fewer game than the Islanders. This one is

going down to the wire, and both teams need this game, and again, winning in regulation is critical

for tiebreakers right now. Yeah, and, you know, Columbus is in the top three in the Metro right now,

but they've been on an absolute tear for the second half of the season. Again, since the coaching

change, 70 and three in their last 10, they've won three in a row now, and it is going to be a tough

game for the Kraken coming into Columbus for this one, but I think, you know, if you're Columbus

here, you obviously have to focus on that game, but then you got to turn around and think about

the second half of that back-to-back on Sunday against your New York Islanders who are their

neck and neck width, right? Yeah, the difference right now is a game in hand. They're tied in

the standings, and both teams will be coming off a back-to-back as the Islanders are in Montreal

on Saturday, which is a big game for both of those teams. Exactly. And I got to add this, is

is Zach Werencki the most underrated or under-appreciated star player in this league right now?

Could be, honestly, could be. There's an argument to be made there for sure, just because Columbus

does not get the flowers that it deserves, and you know, being a smaller market team, they just

don't get the spotlight the way they should, and yeah, he's just been a tremendous driver for

the blue line there, and you know, we've talked in the past about Werencki's injury problems,

and he's stayed healthy knock on wood, you know, and that's been a huge, huge difference maker

for that team. Absolutely, and I mean, we saw him in the Olympics, what he can do. Where are the

blue jackets without him right now? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a valid question. I think, you know,

the complete team there has taken tremendous steps forward. I think their system is a lot better now.

I think they adjust a lot better now, but I think that will be on full display when they have

to play two very different teams in the Seattle Kraken and the New York Islanders. I think,

you know, from an outside perspective, you know, the Islanders style of play is such a grind,

and it's sometimes difficult to watch, but they get it done. And so that's going to be the

interesting challenge for Columbus. Two different teams that they have to face. They've got to make

those adjustments, but they've got to coach who's good at it. Yep, they absolutely do, but a lot

of great NHL action this weekend, as we get into our last month of the season, and I can't believe

that has happened. I know, I know, but that will do it for today's show. Thanks so much for listening,

and once again, don't forget to check out our every day or club for those ad free episodes,

and more you can go to LockdownPodcast.com slash every day or club to learn more. Gilla will be back

on Monday to talk to some hosts from around the Lockdown NHL channel about what's going on in

these playoff races, and we'll see you back here next Friday. Have a great hockey weekend, everyone.

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