Oct 6, 2018 5 min read

So, what is the NHL Players Association doing for Oskar Sundqvist?

He’s the player who was on the wrong end of the hit that got Tom Wilson of the Washington Capitals suspended for 20 games last week. And let’s keep in mind that it happened in a preseason game.

Sundqvist had just relinquished possession of the puck and was a legal target for a hit but, no matter how many times and from how many angles you watch the video and how many ways Wilson’s teammates try to deny it, Wilson was presented with an opportunity to hit an opponent in the head and he took it.

The players union, which also includes Sunqvist as a member, is appealing the length of the suspension. Maybe the union is obligated to do so, but it should also be obligated to protect guys such as Sundqvist from cheap shot artists like Wilson.

He got off easy. It should have been 40. And the NHLPA should be able to say it’s fulfilling its obligation to Sunqvist by choosing not to appeal.

Maybe Wilson didn’t target Sunqvist’s head. It makes no difference. He made contact with it because he saw an opportunity to injure and he took it.

In an exhibition game.

Hockey players know an opportunity to lay a guy out when they see one. With the new emphasis on preventing concussions, players are obligated to avoid needless dangerous hits and deserve to pay a price when they make no effort to do so.

The intent and/or severity of the hit aren’t why Wilson deserved 40 games. It had been only 16 games since his last suspension – a three-gamer he got for a hit on Zach Aston-Reese of the Penguins in the playoffs. This is his fourth suspension in the last 13 months – covering 105 games, including preseason and playoff games. The NHL Department of Player Safety said in a statement that it’s “an unprecedented frequency of suspensions in the history of the Department of Safety.”

If player safety is the goal of the Department of Safety, then guys like Wilson, who refuse to learn, have to be removed from the game. Wilson’s next one should cost him a season.

The fact that this episode could cost him more than a million dollars is further evidence that he didn’t learn a lesson from the previous three.

• A football scout I know was wondering last week if Ben Roethlisberger’s elbow might be a bigger issue than the Steelers are willing to admit. A quarterback’s elbow is a much bigger deal than it used to be. There was a time when a team could reduce the number of throws and lean on the running game if the quarterback’s arm wasn’t 100 percent. Roethlisberger is averaging 47 passes a game through four games. There is no running game to lean on. The Steelers are going to need a lot of points to beat the Falcons and that probably means at least another 47 throws.
• How many thousands of men have played in Major League Baseball in the last 100 years? Chris Davis of the Baltimore Orioles was worse than all of them. He finished the season with a .168 batting average. That’s the worst in MLB history for any batter with enough at bats to qualify for a batting title. Davis had 79 hits in 522 plate appearances. He’s in the middle of a $161 million contract, making $23 million a year. That’s $291,00 per hit. The Orioles still owe him $92 million. Wasn’t Davis a guy who some were suggesting the Pirates should target in free agency a few years ago? Stories like this make the Nutting’s look pretty smart.
• The smart money is on Bryce Harper, who’s now a free agent, ending up with the Cubs next season. That’s not good news for the Pirates and everybody else in the National League Central Division. Harper is 25 and has averaged more than 30 home runs and 100 RBI since coming into the league at 19. Chances are pretty good that he won’t end up with the Pirates or any other team not in a top five TV market.
• The Pirates attendance shrunk by about 450,000 this season and if you think it’s going up next year, maybe you should apply for a job in their sales department. They could use someone with your optimism and enthusiasm. Attendance in MLB dropped by four percent last year. That trend would seem likely to continue unless fans have fallen in love with strikeouts. For the first time in history, there were more of those than hits. Thirty years ago there were thousands more hits than strikeouts.
• Seven MLB teams drew three million fans this season. Three of them are in the Pirates’ division: the Cubs, Cardinals and Brewers.
• The Baltimore Orioles finished 61 games out of first place. Casey Stengel’s 1962 “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game,” Mets, a first-year expansion team, finished 60 out. The Orioles only missed the wild card by 50 games, though. They averaged a little less than 2,000 more fans per game than the Pirates.