Niklas Kronwall: Sinner or Saint?

Far too often have I seen people call him out for “charging”. If you watch his youtube videos, every hit he makes is like this – contact is made, then an explosion through the hit resulting in his feet leaving the ice. The key thought is that his feet, or at least one of them, in this case, are on the ice when contact is made. I think the overriding factor here is the fact that the Wings never get hit with suspensions for anything because, well, we don’t play dirty, and supporters of other teams just want to see us suffer. I love Kronwall when he’s on. He’s a sneaky big hitter. I think that’s the best thing about him. Opposing players have to always be wary of him out there because you never know when he’s gonna Kronwall’d someone. Legal hit, the Ducks and everyone else are just bitching to hear themselves talk.

Great write up, J.J. All of these points cover what I was wondering about the other night.

On the targeting of the head: I’m not entirely sure. If he’s going to hit him straight-on, he’s going to aim for the middle of Selanne’s body as to not go knee-on-knee (or close to it), which can result in contact with the head. I don’t know that he’s necessarily aiming for Selanne’s square face as much as he is the middle of his body; and given the way he has to square up his shoulder for the hit + the height of the two players, it ended up as a head shot. But as you pointed out, a legal one under these cloudy rules.

One of the best reads I’ve come by concerning rules and their application to a particular situation.

I agree with you, J.J. While I don’t like seeing the concussed players leaving the game due to hits to the head, this hit does not break the rules set concerning charging. My question is this: What the heck is Selanne doing? He put himself in a vulnerable position by a) engaging Kronwall without support from the boards, and b) he leans into the shoulder of Kronwall, causing his face to be at shoulder height.

If Selanne moves to the boards to try to cut off a dump-in by Kronwall he’s at most hit on the right shoulder and impedes Kronwall’s ability to move/move the puck up the boards.
IMO, Selanne is trying for the home run by attempting to bank the puck off the boards beside Kronwall and moving around him to open ice. Simply put, Selanne gambled, put himself in a bad situation, and lost.

I don’t know about you guys, but when I played hockey, that was a perfect hit. He used his shoulder to create impact and hit a guy hard. Hard hits are part of hockey.

Does it suck that Selanne got his clock cleaned when Kronner’s shoulder hit hit chin? For him, yeah. But hitting especially when using the shoulder should never be illegal, I don’t care where it hits. It doesn’t make the hit even close to borderline dirty, it was a good solid hockey hit, end of story. He didn’t even put his hands up in the guys face like so many guys hit nowadays. He kept his arm at his side and extended through impact, perfect hit. That’s how you are taught to do it when you first play peewee hockey.

Look, have some of Kronner’s hits in the past been borderline dirty, maybe, probably, yeah. But not this one, this was just a perfect hit, textbook. Head shots happen, the key is to get rid of contact made by elbows, arms, hands, other heads, etc… but a good shoulder check to the chin, is just that, a good shoulder check to the chin.

As the Mullet, Berry Melrose once said, “I never want to see the day when cowards can play our game.” Enough said.

Here’s what I see happen.

Ducks win the draw.
Ducks D-man gets it behind the net and plays it around the boards, but out of Selanne’s reach.
Selanne chases after the puck, but Kronner get’s there first.
Kronner plays puck back in, and then braces for impact.
Selanne, unsure how to hit (thanks to Finnish hockey training) doesn’t brace for impact.
KRONWALLED

The more times I watch it, the more it looks like Selanne just forgot how to either throw a hit or brace for one, and got himself caught in a bad place. Something that you just can’t blame Kronwall for.

Looking at the review the only reason Kronwall hits Selanne in the head is that Selanne is stooped over and leads with his head, there is no way for Kronwall to hit without making contact with the head first unless Kronwall bends down so far he will end up head butting Selanne in the stomache.

Kronwall comes straight on, he is not in a blind angle and he is coming from the direction you have to expect someone to come from, Selanne in that situation puts his head out knowing that there is a risk someone comes from that direction. Nothing dirty about that hit. If Kronwall had come from the side, it would have been dirty because he would have had the option of hitting either the body or the head, but as it stands the heads was blocking his way to the body.

It is also clear he doesn’t follow through the check until after contact is made, that is his MO when delivering these hits.

The intent of the new head hitting rules is not to allow players to duck their heads so they can’t be hit legally, it is so prevent situations like the Shane Doan hit where a player goes directly for the head from a blind angle when the option of a body check is there.

I have seen other Kronwall hits that were more disputable than this one.

I agree completely with your assessment…clean by the books, but one of those hits that I wish Kronwall doesn’t make in that way…in the sense that he aimed high on Selanne.

However, we have to go back to the main counterargument to the whole headshot debate…in that players being hit have to be held as accountable as the hitter. That’s hockey. Keep your damn head up. It wasn’t a blindside hit, not even close…it wasn’t elbowing, not even close.

Selanne doesn’t appear to protect himself at all from Kronner, kept his head down. The only thing he appeared to do was lean away in a very poor effort of evading Kronwall…which obviously didn’t work. How could he not know that hit was coming? Selanne is more at fault here for being hit in the head than Kronwall is…had Kronwall used his elbow, completely different story and I would say a suspension is warranted. However he did not.

If hockey wants to eliminate every single headshot in the game, it would have done so. But it didn’t. And its because the league feels that the person being hit has to be held equally accountable as the hitter. It was an attempt to maintain integrity of the game, and I’m glad they did it.

In short, Teemu, stop whining. IN fact, eff you and you whiny goons over in Anaheim. Sit there and cry when someone doesn’t play nice against you, even though your team has a reputation for thugging it up. Eff you.

If you take a look at the video, Kronwall isn’t even looking at Selanne. The moment he commits to the check, he turns his head. You may say it’s careless but to me it’s just a simple hockey play that is more than OK.

One more thing to note, I don’t think that the NHL will come down on him. Nothing has happened so far and he was actually a featured video on NHL.com and it was in a positive light to boot.

So my feet left the ice almost every time after a hit due to the physics of the game.

Most of us will agree that he doesn’t tend to leave his feet until after first-contact. But to the larger point you seem to be making – that exploding through a player with his legs is the only way Kronwall can effectively hit – I disagree. I’ve never played/don’t have a physics degree, but I don’t think that exploding through checks necessitates high-hits. However, if the only way for him to be effective is to hit high in such a way that the opponents head bears a good deal of the force, then I think he shouldn’t make those hits.

Small guys are going to have it rough

I’d rather this be the case than “normal” or “big” guys getting head-shot (oh the irony) because the only way for small players to have an impact is making high-hits. Lets just get Kronwall some heels, shall we?

I can’t believe Randy Carlyle would have the balls to say that Kronwall intentionally went for Selanne’s head. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Especially coming from a guy that coaches the most thug filled team in the league. What’s that saying about complaining about the sliver in your neighbor’s eye, but ignoring the log in your own eye?

It’s funny how everyone knocks the Red Wings for being a passive, non-physical team… but when they hit back they are dirty.

Now I don’t like the excuse “keep your head up” in most cases, but in this case it absolutely rings true. You know Kronwall is there, you lower your head right into him. That’s an incredibly dumb thing to do. Of course Kronwall is going to lay a hit on you, so be ready for it. Kronwall was right, it looked as if Selanne was going to hit Kronwall… so Kronwall stepped into him. good hockey play.

I will have to say Selanne should have seen Kronwall and protected himself. It wasn’t like he came out of nowhere as soon as he picked the puck up. I can’t believe that he didn’t know he was comming. Selanne looked like he was looking at Kronwall but thought it was the All-Star Game. Smaller players are going to get hit in the head when getting checked, just the way it is. Someone with Selanne’s talent should be able to avoid a check which developed very slowly. I do think Carlyle’s rant is a bit much, seeing that when Detroit played them in the playoffs they had seemed to start a fight when the game ended 5 times, usually started with somone leading with an elbow. I do know that he is protecting his player.

I highly doubt Kronwall was “targeting” Selanne’s head. Kronwall assumed Selanne was going to finish his check, thus instead of getting hit… he initiated the hit. A play Datsyuk is very adept at too. Sometimes the players will lower their head just at the wrong time to facilitate getting hit in the head. That was a hockey hit that unfortunately landed on Selanne’s face. Selanne should know better than to skate casually around Kronwall anyways. Also the Ducks should NEVER talk about dirty play unless they begin with their own players. Such as Mr. elbow leading hitter himself Corey Perry.