(Brace Hemmelgarn, USA TODAY Sports)
Wild enforcer Matt Cooke had a great day yesterday. He was worried that he could miss the entire season after his knee-on-knee hit on Tyson Barrie that caused the Avs defenseman to be out four-to-six weeks with a MCL injury.
Instead, he received a lenient sentence from the NHL by missing seven games after an in-house hearing with the NHL’s Department of Player Safety in New York. Cooke will be back to play if his team advances while Barrie will likely not be playing this season if the Avalanche goes far in the playoffs.
Not only Barrie is going to miss time, but the Avalanche will have a hard time replacing his skillset. They are already down on defensemen as it is. The Wild won’t miss much with losing Cooke since he has no talent other than injuring people. That’s not a fair tradeoff.
It’s remarkable why the Wild enforcer received a lenient sentence with his history. He served suspensions for injuring players such as Marc Savard, Ryan McDonough, Matt Johnson, Scott Walker, Artem Anisimov and Fedor Tyutin. He also ended Savard’s career with a dirty hit.
After ending Savard’s career, the NHL should have given Cooke a zero tolerance treatment. That means if he doled out a dirty hit that causes a player to lose time, he should be suspended for a month. If he injured a player that would have cost him his career, he should be banned from the sport for good.
It’s a joke Cooke is employed by a NHL team. He adds nothing to his team other than injuring players. That has been the rap for his entire career. This is the same guy that laid out dirty hits to Erik Karlsson, Sam Gagner, Valeri Nichushkin, Adam McQuaid, Alex Ovechkin, Steve Montador, Evander Kane, Keith Yandle, Rick DiPietro, Andrei Markov, Chris Osgood, Erik Cole, Zach Bogosian, Zach Parise and Mathieu Roy .On his 104.3 The Fan’s Morning Show weekly spot today, Avalanche coach Patrick Roy mentioned Barrie was the 22nd player that was hit by the Wild goon in his career.
Anyone can google up Cooke’s dirty hits on YouTube. No one needs to be a hockey aficionado to know the Wild enforcer is a thug.
It’s embarrassing this guy is in the league. Enforcers like him have made hockey a joke by creating a perception that the sport will be a thug sport. How can anyone take hockey seriously when guys like him are employed?
For Cooke to not get suspended for the rest of the playoffs or banned for life, it shows hockey need enforcers to get the casual fans to be into it. It’s a sad commentary.
Until a hockey player is dead from a dirty hit, guys like Cooke will continue to do their thing and get away with it.
The league should have gotten tough on Cooke long time ago. That way he would have stopped doing these hits. That seven-game suspension will certainly not stop him from doing it again.
Don’t kid yourself thinking Cooke has few years left until he is out of the league. There is always going to be room for players like him. Teams know they need enforcers to take out the other team’s best players for them to win a playoff series. That’s why the Wild signed their agitator to a three-year deal in the offseason.
Cooke did his job. He took one of the good Avalanche players. Rest assured, he would have continued to do it again tonight if he was not suspended. That’s scary.
I have no rooting interest in this series. That said, the sport would be better off if the Wild don’t advance. The last thing we need is Cooke to come back and maim another innocent player doing his job. Everyone knows he is not going to stop when he comes back. He would not be doing what he is paid to do if he stopped his nonsense.
The fact Cooke could play in the next round is disgusting. He doesn’t deserve that privilege. Not when he cost an Avalanche player his season.
It’s a bad day for the league when this goon gets to come back this season. There’s nothing positive that comes from him getting a seven-game suspension.
Cooke is an embarrassment to himself, his team and the league whether he realizes it or not. It does not speak well of his skill that he was hired to be a goon. It also does not speak well of the league that guys like him play in it and get away with dirty hits.
Not suspending him for the season sends a bad message.
Contact or follow Leslie Monteiro at @LightRodWriter
Leslie Monteiro
Leslie is a contributor for Lightning Rod Sports. He covered high school sports in Bergen County out in North Jersey, and has written op-ed columns on sports such as Bleacher Report and NY Sports Digest.
