Ottawa Senators winger Nick Cousins answered the bell and paid the price on Saturday night.
Cousins agreed to square off against rugged Montreal Canadiens' defenseman Jayden Struble in the third period of the Senators' 4-3 overtime loss at the Bell Centre. The Sens winger took a punch to the face that landed so hard and so flush, it took him out of the game.
Like it or not, this is the NHL's unofficial frontier justice system at work, a system that's been around for more than a century.
Struble all but admitted after the game that he fought Cousins to get even with him for a September 30th slash on Ivan Demidov during a preseason game in Quebec City.
“When you have a guy like that taking a shot at your young star player, that was a bad play, none of us liked it," Struble told the media. "We were thinking about it. It was on our minds. You can’t just go around trying to hurt our best players.”
At practice on Monday in a scrum with the local media, Cousins seemed none the worse for wear, save for a few battle scars. He took some accountability for his slash, which was why he accepted the fight.
"Sometimes you gotta answer the bell for your actions," Cousins said. "I mean, I'm certainly glad that Demidov is okay. I think definitely I've gotta take care of my stick there a little bit better, and yeah, sometimes you gotta answer the bell, and I did that. It's over with, and we kind of move on now."
As Cousins mentioned, Demidov's wrist wasn't badly damaged that night. But it was a nasty slash with serious intent behind it, so the Canadiens had every right to be ticked off. Cousins was removed from the game and fined by the NHL, and Saturday night was the Habs' first chance for real revenge.
Like an old western, the Habs called Cousins out onto the street, demanding satisfaction. Cousins finally obliged in the third period, and if he hadn't, the Canadiens would have continued to make life extra miserable for him in future games.
The matter now appears to be settled, especially with Cousins losing the fight. That's important because sometimes if a player agrees to a fight and does too well, then suddenly the matter isn't settled.
I know. It's complicated.
But it isn't accurate to frame the Sept. 30th slash as some completely random thing. In all likelihood, it was Ottawa's attempt at its own frontier justice for an incident that had happened a few moments before in that game. Carter Yakemchuk, the Senators' 2024 first-rounder, had just been jumped by Florian Xhekaj, who caught Yakemchuk with several punches.
According to the unofficial code, Ottawa had two options. Go after Xhekaj to get even with him directly, or go after their 2024 first-rounder. Cousins apparently chose the latter.
Then, in the whataboutism of NHL frontier justice, the Canadiens would probably push back on you and remind you of Hayden Hodgson's hit from behind on Alex Newhook shortly before in that same game.
At some point, as Linus Ullmark might describe it, the NHL world of frontier justice starts to sound a little immature, like two scrappy boys, standing in front of their dad, and yelling...
"He started it!"
"No, he started it!"
"Shut up!"
"No, you shut up!"
In theory, Cousins should be off the hook now, but does the frontier justice system demand another response? Return fire? Revenge for the revenge?
Should enforcer Kurtis MacDermid get after Struble? Struble does outweigh Cousins by almost 20 pounds. Is that something?
For those of you scoring at home, if the Sens do respond in the next game, that would be Ottawa answering back to Montreal's reply to the Sens' answer to the Habs' response to the reply to the answer.
Who knows when this thing all started? Maybe it was that time King Clancy called Newsy Lalonde a rapscallion?
But some people think that if the NHL just came down harder on these dirty plays, on the ice or at the department of player safety, then the players wouldn't ever have to take things into their own hands like this.
I doubt that.
Let's say Cousins got a 40-game suspension for his slash on Demidov. For one, the players' association would lose its mind. It exists to protect player money, not safety. But in the current culture, even if Cousins did get pounded with a 40-game ban, Struble or Arber Xhekaj would still have been waiting for him, hoping to unleash a 40-punch pounding.
The NHL could start throwing the book at those who violate the existing intent to injure rule. It would take some time to learn the lesson and undo the culture, but players would come around... eventually. But that would have to mean the end of fighting, which by definition is an intent to injure.
No, there will be none of that.
The league's decision-makers are still an old boys' club, and they're perfectly fine with fighting and the way things are. So make no mistake, dirty NHL plays and the ensuing frontier justice aren't going away anytime soon.
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