Keep Yer Head Up

We had another scary moment Saturday night revolving around the testy budding rivalry between Carolina and Pittsburgh.

Canes forward Trevor Letowski had just sent a drop pass to one of his teammates, and still had his head turned in that direction, away from where his forward motion would take him. About a second or two later, a blur of Vegas Gold and Black dressed as Penguins forward Colby Armstrong slammed a glancing elbow across Letowski's head, causing the Carolina player to lose control of his body and fall to the ice with a concussion.

Although my job these days is to sit at a desk and skip through the satellite channels to check on hockey action throughout my shift, I missed the actual incident, but watched for a good 5 minutes as the stretcher came onto the ice to lift Letowski up and take him to the hospital. Replays eventually showed that Letowski couldn't have known Armstrong was there with his head turned, and that Armstrong's shoulder-elbow was not premeditated, since Armstrong's body was turned to the side, not directly facing, Letowski when the hit occurred.

Still, Carolina head coach Peter Laviolette had to engage in a little whining, calling Armstrong's hit a late one. The implication is that the hit was a dirty one on an unsuspecting player. Maybe he was engaging in a little bit of gamesmanship to get inside the young man's head, but the implication is unwarranted.

Let's not forget, every player goes through their paces in their early years before earning their reputations. Even the great Scott Stevens, whose shoulder-to-head hit on Eric Lindros in 2000 permanently changed Lindros' career, was called a dirty little kid when he first came up with the Capitals. Let's also not forget that the first incident between these teams, Brooks Orpik's blatant cross-check to the back of Erik Cole's head last year, caused Cole to miss a big chunk of time with a broken neck.

Letowski committed the Second Cardinal Sin of a forward: Even with your head up, turn your head in the direction you're skating. He paid for it, on the receiving end of a shoulder that I defy a 15-year veteran not to pass up. But it was not dirty in the least. Just unfortunate. Armstrong merely followed one of the rules of backchecking: always follow through on a hit. He'd do well to get himself in better position from now
on - getting his whole body turned into the check instead of only an arm.

Aside from the obvious effects of a concussion for Letowski, the other unfortunate part of the incident is that Armstrong will go through an undefined period of questioning himself on and off the ice. You'll start to notice a bit of hesitation, maybe some shying away from contact. Sometimes the toughest thing a young player can do is train himself mentally to shut out any subtle digs and play the game that got him to the Big Show.

Until the NHL begins to draft skilled and speedy players more in the Brian Gionta mold, these incidents will be more and more prevalent. Adding speed to the game only intensifies the impact of shoulder-to-head contact on players that still run in the 6-foot-plus, 200-plus pound range. The league didn't have this problem 20 years ago when games were high-scoring with plenty of hard hits and fighting. Maybe it's asking too much of league general managers on down to junior coaches to encourage smaller players to get a shot at the big time.