Forward Darcy Tucker of the Toronto Maple Leafs was fined $2,500 US but escaped any further punishment from the NHL on Tuesday after the league automatically reviewed his match penalty from the previous night's game.

Tucker took the helmet off Cam Janssen during a wild fight Monday night and hit the New Jersey Devils winger on the head with it _ twice. He was thrown out of the game with his match penalty and NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell reviewed it Tuesday.

"We did not feel it was Tucker's intent to hurt Janssen with the helmet," Campbell said Tuesday. "He was trying to get the helmet off and I don't think he was trying to use it as a weapon."

Tucker said much the same after Monday's game. "It was in the heat of the moment," Tucker said. "I didn't really know what the penalty was for until I got to the dressing room."

WTF?

Did anyone else see this? How do you "unintentionally" hit someone in the head with their own helmet....twice? This judgement seems a bit light after the Bertuzzi incident. I'm sure Bertuzzi didn't mean to end Steve Moore's career....but he did anyways. It didn't stop the league from suspending him indefinitely. What a crock of shit.

I didnt see it, but if you hit someone twice with a helmet, isnt the intent to injure there? I mean those helmets are made out of hard plastic and he could have cut him or worse yet fractured his skull.

I love how he says it is in the "heat of the moment", but isnt that what happens when all the idiots do really idiotic stuff?


I will never understand the NHL and their ruling on Bertuzzi after the slap on the wrist they gave Lemiuex for hitting Draper from behind. Shrug..hockey has become pussified. They could have opened the game up and still left fighting in the game.


Art

Well....fighting is still in the game, just not in the last 5 minutes.

As pleased as I am that hockey is back, I still think the league has a long way to go. Not so much with the rules... the new rules are pretty OK so far. However, the Commissioner is still a douche bag that no one respects and the player's union is a mess. They will never have any sort of consistency with the enforcement of league policy or the handling of fines/ suspensions until they clean up the front office and figure out who's gonna lead them out of the ashes.

Sometimes I think that the league is still doomed to ultimately fail and expire.

If you have ever been in a hockey fight before you are pretty much punching as fast as you can. So punch punch try and get the helmet off as quickly as possible and resume punching. Usually you drop the helmet and punch but i can completely see the possibility that in a hurry to punch again you dont open your hand enough for the strap of the helmet to fall out of your hand before you hit the guy............accidents happen

this wasnt a premeditated punch to the back of the head
or a stick to the head ala marty mcsorely

Another hockey fan?

I think Shug just got an erection.