Daily Faceoff Live: Should Ryan Reaves be suspended for his hit on Filip Hronek?
Seravalli: “Let’s start with what Matt Larkin referred to on Daily Faceoff as ‘the hit of the year.’ Ryan Reaves crushed Filip Hronek of the Red Wings, a guy who’s had an excellent year on the blueline for Detroit.
Mike, what are your thoughts on this hit?”
oh my good lord ryan reaves pic.twitter.com/2MjgsPW2tz
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) December 15, 2022McKenna: “This is just a freight train. And here’s the thing, Hronek skates right into Reaves. If you back the clip up and watch Reaves well in advance, he actually circles outside the blueline and all he’s doing is flowing forward, he doesn’t take any steps at all. Hronek skates right into him.
I don’t like victim shame, but Hronek has to be aware of his surroundings. This wasn’t a predatory hit to me in any way. I’m sure Reaves saw Hronek coming and thought ‘well, this is going to be a big hit, nothing I can do about it.’
This is like when you’re riding your bike as a kid, and you look away for a second and the next thing you know you’ve planted yourself in an oak tree.
I’ve seen worse hits in recent years where it felt predatory and a player was clearly taking advantage of someone. With this one, Hronek had a chance to get out of the way or do something different here. I don’t like to see anyone get hurt but this one was simply time and space. It was going to happen.”
Seravalli: “The look on Hronek’s face, it was deer in the headlights, it’s like he knew, I’m in big trouble here and I’m going to take one.
And here’s the thing, by the letter of the law, this hit is absolutely clean. I’ve been advocating for physical hockey forever and the old me would be celebrating and clapping for this huge hit. But I saw a Tweet last night from Chris Nowinski, a former NCAA football player who’s now a doctor, and it made me stop in my tracks and think, he’s onto something…
The NFL used to allow that too. Then the players decided that getting a traumatic brain injury for looking the wrong way is a stupid punishment.
NHL players need to know that the game doesn't have to be this dangerous. A slight rule tweak & they go home healthy to their kids.
This encapsulates basically everything that I’m thinking now and nobody has said it as succinctly as Chris Nowinski did and it’s actually led to a change in opinion for me.”
You can watch the full episode here…