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McMann boarding major on Mintyukov – Have your say!



Bobby McMann was issued a five minute major penalty and a game misconduct for this hit to Pavel Mintyukov that sent Mintyukov flying heavily into the boards and cut his face. Was a major the right call or was it too much? Should there be a suspension? Have your say!

22 Comments

  1. One of the worst calls I have seen in a long time. That type of hit should be encouraged and cheered. Tough result but that’s hockey.

  2. At some point McCann should have realized that even if he goes for the shoulder the player will still go towards the boards. Dont think a suspension is needed.

  3. Leafs fan here. I’m fine with this as boarding call, as long as it’s called this way on a regular basis going forward. McMann definitely had solid shoulder to shoulder contact, but was pretty far from the boards, and did cause significant, dangerous contact with the boards. I’d say this has to be the minimum threshold for boarding calls going forwards. It would be such a Leafy thing for this to get called against us, and then for the standard to loosen for everyone else.

  4. So is the player untouchable based on him being close to the boards? He knew McMann was there & had time to brace for contact but chose to dump the puck instead. I think it’s these types of plays that will get hitting drastically reduced if the league keeps going after clean hits where the player who got hit was at fault.

  5. Bad call ref. He was off center when hit and fell awkwardly. Had he been upright – a clean check. The officiating has been horrendous this year in my opinion.

  6. Boarding rule is weird. You can basically push someone against the boards unless it looks dangerous. So basically its left to the subjective view of the ref whether it looks dangerous or not. This is one of those hits where some refs might call it boarding and other might not. There's also intent of the leafs player of trying to play the puck with his stick but he cant reach it so commits to checking the guy instead. The ducks player also is not an unsuspecting target, because he must know that the check is coming. Otherwise I don't think he would've dumbed the puck there. The onus is on the checking player to ensure the safety of the hit, but the ducks player did himself no favours.

    Unfortunately the ducks player goes flying and apparently lands dangerously into the boards. So boarding. But I feel like this is all up to ref interpretation. Not that clear cut. And definitely not a major imo.

    I feel like the entire ruling about boarding needs to be checked at because you are at the same time allowing checking people into the boards, but at the same time not allowing it if it looks dangerous. Has the rulebook defined what constitutes a "dangerous crash into the boards" or are we leaving that up to individual refs interpretation. If we are then the rule is inconsistent and flawed. Because two different refs might rule the same check differently. It is also abusable by players looking to draw penalties. A rule sucks if there is a asterisk in it.

  7. Shoulder to Shoulder and many of these young players now do not know how to absorb a hit, defend against a hit and many times they put themselves in a position to be hit hard

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