Two Knees and Take a Left...

The Western Conference, like the Wu-Tang Clan, ain't nuthin ta F%$# wit.

San Jose-Nashville is turning out to be an ice-rink version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Scott Hartnell was (unjustly) spared punishment for an obvious, nasty knee-to-knee hit on Jonathan Cheechoo on Wednesday night, then Alex Radulov sends an errant, well-placed elbow to the side of Steve Bernier's head last night.

In Anaheim last night, Wild goon Derek Boogaard and little-known defenseman whose name I can't recall now from the Ducks had a scary, full-speed knee-to-knee meeting. Thankfully, the dude on the Ducks was unharmed, yet Boogaard had to stand tall before the man and accept some punishment from Anaheim's more feisty skaters.

It must be the playoffs, because the amount of rancor over the television in the US and Canada paled in comparison to lesser incidents in the regular season. The tenets of "The Code" become a bit looser when 16 teams are vying for that once-in-a-lifetime chance to lift the Stanley Cup, and grown men would gladly hip-check their grandmothers to reach that goal.

Nonetheless, it is shocking to see how play in the conferences has switched in the last 10 years. The East is now the area of slick-skating, fast-moving play with sensational goaltending stops under heavy fire - while the West has become the territory of a gallery of assassins punctuating the odd scoring opportunity. Dare I say that the beasts are no longer with the East, and the West is the best. Too bad you still have to wait until 10:30 eastern time before the rogues are unleashed in these far superior games. If ony that Vancouver-Dallas Game 1 had started at 8 pm instead of 10:30, it would have garnered enough attention to be regarded as an instant classic.

Still, the level of violent play so early in the playoffs does concern me. If it's a knee in Game 1 and an elbow in Game 2, how far behind will a sucker punch be, or a flying elbow in open ice? At one time, nobody outside Western Canada cared much that Edmonton's Mark Messier once knocked Calgary's Jamie Macoun out of the playoffs with a vicious two-handed cross-check to the face which broke Macoun's jaw in two places. That was 20 years, and 25 average pounds-per-player ago. The stakes are just as high, but the breakneck pace of play in the present will cause some serious harm to come to somebody.

Someone will surely sate their appetite for violence, someone else will be disgusted, but everyone will have their eyes glued to the tube while it goes on.