From TSN:

The NHL has suspended Montreal Canadiens forward Tom Kostopoulos three games on Monday for a hit on Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Mike Van Ryn on Saturday night.

Kostopoulos knocked Van Ryn into the boards from behind in the first period of the Toronto’s 6-3 win. Kostopoulos was given a major penalty for boarding and ejected from the game.

” First and foremost, I sincerely regret the injuries suffered by Mike Van Ryn,” Kostopoulos said in a statement. ”This is an unfortunate turn of events. I was just trying to get in on the forecheck and get the puck. I didn’t anticipate him turning and couldn’t stop. I was trying to finish my check and obviously it did not end up well. I never intend on injuring another player. I feel bad. I hope he is going to be all right and resume playing as quickly as possible.”

Van Ryn suffered a concussion, a broken nose, a broken bone in his hand and a cut to his forehead. He is expected to miss a month.

The 29-year-old Kostopoulos has only had one previous suspension. He was suspended for one game in November of 2007 for going after Boston Bruins’ Mark Stuart late in a fight-filled contest in Montreal.

Kostopoulos will forfeit almost US$33,000 in salary and will miss games against Ottawa, Boston and Philadelphia.


TSN: Suspended

Rocket:

I admit to being a little surprised at the severity of Kostopoulos’ suspension. I was expecting a game or two. Then there’s the opinion of SportsNet’s resident lunatic, Jim Kelley, who stated that, at minimum, a 10 game suspension was warranted.

We’re told by Colin Campbell that Tom is a repeat offender. In truth, it’s just a technicality as Kostopoulos’ previous suspension resulted from a late game fight last year. TK has no history of dirty play.

Looking back, we see that Randy Jones received only 2 games for the hit that put Patrice Bergeron out for a year. More recently serial hit-from-behind-artist Ryan Hollweg received a 3 game suspension for taking out Alex Pietrangelo.

In addition, there were mitigating aspects of the hit itself. Mike Van Ryn took a look and saw Kosto coming. Van Ryn could have turned away from the check but chose not to do that. Kostopoulos finished his check. There was no intent to injure. If Van Ryn turns the opposite way, perhaps Kosto makes a big hit, the puck is turned over and its a great play by TK.

I would suggest that Kurt Sauer’s forearm to the head of Andrei Kostitsyn and Mike Commodore’s vicious elbow again to the head of AK are better examples of dirty hits. Yet Commodore received only two minutes and Sauer was not penalized.

I would firmly support action by the league to limit head injuries. But at this time, the rulings are far too arbitrary with punishment seemingly dictated by resulting injuries rather than severity and intent of the hit.