Clarke MacArthur hits Liam Reddox.

During the third period of the Oilers recent game in Buffalo, Liam Reddox was hit from behind by Clarke MacArthur. Reddox was down on the ice for a prolonged period before getting up. In addition to a possible concussion, Reddox also might have an injury to his wrist resulting from the hit.

Over at Oilers Nation, here's Jonathan Willis' reaction to the hit:

It's a dirty hit and well worth five minutes and the game misconduct, but it didn't strike me as one where MacArthur meant to injure Reddox. Watching the play, it was a split-second decision and I'm inclined to give MacArthur the benefit of the doubt here.

Not too surprisingly, David Olesky from the Die by the Blade (Buffalo Sabres blog) had a somewhat unsympathetic reaction:

Am I the only one that thinks Liam Reddox deserves some of the blame for this hit because he steps in front of MacArthur at the last minute? In addition, you can see Reddox already falling to the ice before MacArthur gives him a shove to the back. We continuously see players not protect themselves from a hit and this is no different. I have been consistent in my belief this needs to stop. When Patrick Kaleta was hit this way last season against the Canadiens, I said the same thing. Players need to protect themselves from hist and not put themselves in position to be hit in this manner.

David Staples from the Cult of Hockey had this reaction:

As scary as it was to see Reddox crumpled against the boards after this hit, I've seen far worse hits-from-behind, ones that were far more reckless and far more malicious... If the NHL was serious about stopping this kind of dangerous play, MacArthur would get five games, as this was on the lower end of such hits, the worst of which merit 20-25 game suspensions. But in no way is the NHL serious about stopping such hits.

Mark Spector from Sportsnet offered this insight:

The National Hockey League general managers had barely boarded their flights home from the GMs meetings, when MacArthur drove Edmonton call-up Liam Reddox head-first into the boards with a textbook hit from behind.

Then of course, the requisite deflection of blame.

"We were leaning on each other and when he went to shoot it he was off-balance. One of those bad situations. I hope he's all right. I never mean to put a guy in that spot," said MacArthur, reciting his apology right off of the NHLPA cheat sheets.

My thoughts on the hit:

We all know that Liam Reddox is a gritty player for his smaller size. He's known to battle hard for the puck and to play in dangerous spots. From watching the replay from the first angle, the hit does look pretty brutal, but relatively easy to dismiss as accidental. However, if you watch the video clip from YouTube around the 58 second mark you get the benefit of a replay from a different camera angle. Much like the Zapruder film, you get a different flavor for the hit from watching the brief 3 second clip from the side angle. Granted it's a short clip from a slightly better angle... but I think the hit itself looks far more malicious from this angle. Whether these hits are simply 'accidental' or perhaps intentional, it would be nice to see the league do something to try to prevent these 'accidents' from happening. After all, hockey players need brains too!

Watch for yourself:

Comments (10) Add Comment

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written by Racki, November 12, 2009

Not intentional, but definitely every bit as dangerous. We'll likely lose another guy for a while and not what we needed. I'm not sure how anyone can blame Reddox on that hit, other than not being heavy enough to body MacArthur off of him. As a player you do have to protect yourself, but the onus still is on the hitter to let up when you're in a vulnerable position like that.

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written by Jay, November 12, 2009

Hey Racki, well it's another unfortunate injury for the Oilers along with Grebeshkov. We're losing a player or two every other game it seems like, so it's been a pretty crazy year.

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written by Racki, November 12, 2009

Yah, it seems that way doesn't it? That's ridiculous. We might re-break that man-games-lost record that they just set a couple of years ago or so.

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written by HockeyNoob, November 12, 2009

I hope Souray's back in for the next game with Grebeshkov now out. I guess we'll see on that. Some of the injuries can probably just be chalked up to 'bad luck,' but it's possible that our smaller roster is somewhat related. With Calgary, for example, this year they seemed to play more physical vs. the Oilers or Canadiens compared to the Rangers or Avalanche.

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written by Racki, November 12, 2009

I'd say that's a possibility, but it's not the little guys that are getting hurt, really. Souray, Staios, Horcoff, Pisani, JFJ, Stone, Grebeshkov. None of those guys are players I'd say are small (soft, maybe, but not small! smilies/tongue.gif

). If I'm not mistaken, Reddox is the only guy that is small that has been hurt on the Oilers roster. We had a few flu's to smaller players, but that's it. So I wouldn't think that's the issue here.

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written by HockeyNoob, November 12, 2009

Hey Racki, that's not quite what I meant. smilies/cool.gif

I guess that I should clarify what I was trying so say. I agree that the actual players who have been injured themselves are not particularly small. However, it's possible that because the Oilers are collectively a smaller team that it predisposes them to injuries in part from other teams taking liberties with them.

As I said, I've watched Calgary play a number of games this year. When Calgary played teams like Edmonton or Montreal, they seemed to have a dramatically different style of play. In their recent game vs. Montreal, they were running guys over all night long. In contrast, when they played the Avalanche or Rangers, they seemed to be on their best behavior.

I am not certain of this, but it is something that's been on my mind I guess.

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written by anyonebutdetroit, November 12, 2009

Hey Jay - Thanks for the welcome - I'm looking forward to not giving up 4 PP goals to your Oil in Edmonton on Wed

Let me know if you want to do a quick Q&A on each others blogs as a game preview or something...

Regarding the Reddox hit -- it really looks accidental to me -- in this case, being tossed for the game was probably enough -- but guys who repeatedly do this sort of thing (2+ times) should get lengthy (20 game) suspensions - regardless of whether it looked intentional or not.

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written by Jay, November 12, 2009

Hey Anyonebutdetroit,

Re: Reddox hit - Good thoughts on what might be an appropriate response. On the one hand, it's often impossible to watch a replay and decide if there's intent or not. Yet, at some point players have to be responsible if they're careless and it leads to injury.

As for the quick Q&A, that sounds like a great idea.

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written by Paul Kelly, November 13, 2009

I don't buy this "It's Reddox's fault because he had his back turned toward the center of the ice" BS.

How is a player supposed to address a puck along the wall without turning toward it? It's simply not possible in the speed of today's game to always address the puck from the side.

So it's the approaching hitter's responsibility to recognize this. There's nothing new about this kind of play in hockey. It's been around forever, yet 20 years ago you didn't see nearly as many guys getting planted from behind head-first into the boards.

MacArthur should get five games. I don't care if he's "not that kind of player." He WAS for that instance and should be held responsible.

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written by Jay, November 13, 2009

Hey Paul,

MacArthur like Iginila in his hit/trip on Souray, also has benefited from some degree of latitude based on his 'clean player' reputation. However, no one likes to see these type of hits happen which have the potential to cause serious injuries. If the NHL chose to send a message to players for these incidents (with a suspension), it might go a long way to prevent them from happening in the future. Unfortunately, giving a player a free pass based on a clean reputation does little to deter these hits from happening again.