Dirtiest NHL Team this season?

[MattyBoy 1]

If you're talking about the hit on Richards, Seidenberg doesn't stick his leg out. He turns his body to get his hip into Richards and Richards tries to get around him to the inside. There wasn't even a penalty on the play so both referees apparently saw it exactly as I described.

Even taking that away, what about the other 6?

[chippa13 1844]

It means you found 6 instances of Bruins doing bad things, that's all.

[hockeymass 11]

I just tried to post videos... They were all of bruins and they were all from this season but I got an error message saying there were too many medie files in my post. So here's a written list:

Lucic running Miller

Lucic hitting Mcdonagh from behind and throwing a punch at him

Ference hitting McDonagh from behind

Seidenberg knee on knee with Richards

McQuaid knee on knee with Foligno

Marchand lowbridge on Salo

Marchand slewfoot on Niskanen

Those are all on youtube, every single one of them is a good argument and this isn't me blindly hating them.

Do you really think it would be difficult to find 6 or 7 videos of questionable plays by every team in the NHL?

[MattyBoy 1]

Complain about other teams dirty play and turn a blindeye to your own teams dirty play... Don't you guys love to criticize Canucks fans and management for doing that?

[zachary 2]

Law Goalie there is no point in explaining it to someone who is clearly a Bruins fan and finds no wrong in the play. It is obvious to everyone else in here that he leaned into Halpern with intent to strike an unsuspecting player, if he wasn't why did he pull up shortly after to make sure he made contact? Just admit you're wrong already hockeymass. Btw I am a Pens fan and I have no allegiance towards either Bruins or Habs.

[kklinder 0]

Law Goalie there is no point in explaining it to someone who is clearly a Bruins fan and finds no wrong in the play. It is obvious to everyone else in here that he leaned into Halpern with intent to strike an unsuspecting player, if he wasn't why did he pull up shortly after to make sure he made contact? Just admit you're wrong already hockeymass. Btw I am a Pens fan and I have no allegiance towards either Bruins or Habs.

Thank you for the concise summary, Zachary!!! Spot on!

How the hell is Pedro pushing an old man AT ALL relevant to the Bruins? I'm not being ultra sensitive. I'm defending the Bruins from people like you who don't have a decent argument to make and are blindly hating.

No hating at all...don't care about either team...it's just that your ardent defense is funny. 'Pedro' was a hyperbolic point about fanaticism-induced blindness...sorry that was so unclear. Oh, and for the record, as a Rangers fan, I often find Dubinsky and Callahan to be unnecessarily chippy.

You're assuming that Ference knew it was Halpern who was about to hit him, and you may be right, but I'll give you a scenario that might explain otherwise.

I was playing goalie yesterday during drop-in. Puck bounces around and comes out to one of their better players slightly inside the left circle, so I came out to challenge him since he has a hard shot. He passed it over to the player that had been standing to my right the past five seconds -- and who was now behind me -- for an easy tap in. I turned toward one of our players and said, "I thought that was one of our guys!"

With the puck going back and forth, I knew someone was standing right in front of me, but I never had a chance to focus on who it was. I just assumed it was someone on my team playing defense. The same thing could have easily happened to Ference. His eyes appeared to following the puck, when suddenly he noticed in his peripheral that a player was about to run into him. What he likely wouldn't have been able to ascertain in the 6/10 of a second that he had was who was hitting him and why.

So you are saying that a player has to make a decision about the guy coming twds him and ascertain if based their playing style and

history the situation would suggest that he is about to get run? That is a pretty tall order.

I think that a better prescription would be for all players to keep their heads up, look where they are going and to defend themselves

at all times when on the ice. If Halpern was doing that, Ference's hit, dirty or not would never have happened.

Yes, I am...the play in question was not bang-bang like you're describing (goalie is very different, too) , so I'd expect him to know. The puck was near the blue line by the time the hit was delivered. With that amount of time, he had to know.

I think league rules allow a player to assume safety away from the play. In fact, wouldn't breach of away-from-play rules define a big category of dirty play. Yes, Halpern should have been more aware, but but I'm just curious what the Bruins fans would think if a guy from another team did the same to a Bruins player. BTW, HM, that was rhetorical; it doesn't need an answer. Thanks for the entertainment, though.

[chippa13 1844]

Complain about other teams dirty play and turn a blindeye to your own teams dirty play... Don't you guys love to criticize Canucks fans and management for doing that?

That isn't what I have done. All I have said is that you can't call a team the "dirtiest" team without having seen every team play in person and watched everything all over the entire sheet of ice because 99% of the dirty play occurs away from the puck and out of the camera's eye. The person who has done that may cast the first stone.

[Gr8erade 1]

Why? That's got nothing to do with my point -- that a play doesn't become "dirty" or not "dirty" based on whether it's penalized. That's after the fact, and has nothing to do with the character of the act.

Why? Because being the dirtiest team is not the same as being the most penalized team. A team that plays a heavy, physical style is likely to take more penalties. Philadelphia, Boston and the Rangers are the most penalized teams. Are they also the 3 dirtiest? I don't think people would agree that they are.

I think dirty players are the ones who chop, hack, and whack behind the play, throw spears and cross checks to injure when they think they can get away with it. Each team has players like this. I watch enough hockey and go to enough games to believe that Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Vancouver have more than their share of players who take cheap shots. But I don't think confronting a cheap shot artist or standing up for a teammate makes a team or player dirty. I don't think big hits are dirty. As for Boston, they have a few guys who have a dirty edge to them too, but I wouldn't compare them to those other three, even though they have a lot of penalty minutes. Boston has had a few games that have skewed their penalty numbers, but as I pointed out, they're #20 in the league in times short handed. And their times short handed and times on the power play are almost equal, so their penalties dont even bear out that they're dirtier than whoever they're playing.

[hockeymass 11]

Law Goalie there is no point in explaining it to someone who is clearly a Bruins fan and finds no wrong in the play. It is obvious to everyone else in here that he leaned into Halpern with intent to strike an unsuspecting player, if he wasn't why did he pull up shortly after to make sure he made contact? Just admit you're wrong already hockeymass. Btw I am a Pens fan and I have no allegiance towards either Bruins or Habs.

I won't admit I'm wrong when I'm not wrong. Show me the rule that says you have to cede your position on the ice to another player if he doesn't see you. He braces for Halpern skating into him. This is why this thread is stupid. Nobody is making any actual points as to why the Bruins are dirty (except for Law Goalie, and his interpretation of the interference rule is wrong), just saying that they're dirty.

No hating at all...don't care about either team...it's just that your ardent defense is funny. 'Pedro' was a hyperbolic point about fanaticism-induced blindness...sorry that was so unclear. Oh, and for the record, as a Rangers fan, I often find Dubinsky and Callahan to be unnecessarily chippy.

That's great, it's still irrelevant to the discussion and is a strawman (look it up).

[zachary 2]

I really don't understand how you don't get it. Ference is no angel and he knew what he was doing, he had more than enough time to dip to the side and avoid any contact which almost anyone can do.

[hockeymass 11]

I really don't understand how you don't get it. Ference is no angel and he knew what he was doing, he had more than enough time to dip to the side and avoid any contact which almost anyone can do.

There's no reason for him to get out of Halpern's way. You seem to think he's required to, which he absolutely isn't. I'm not sure how I can be any more clear. Show me where it says that you have to get out of the way of an attacking player.

[troy 12]

Halpern wasn't attacking, not getting out of his way was dirty.

[BucksAway 16]

At least there is one thing we can all agree on, Detroit is far and away the cleanest team in the league, and Kronwall is the NHL's cleanest big hitter. lol

100% agree!!!

Kronwall is the leagues best hitter by a mile, elbows never up, never inteneds to hurt, never leaves his feet, list goes on as to why his checks are so clean.

I have noticed he LOVES hitting on the left hand side boards where he will ALWAYS come in the same way, obviosly feels extremely comfortable coming in with this left shoulder although i have noticed a few of his hits are more so coming from his back, if you watch a few of those hits on the left boards he almost checks with his back rather then his shoulder

As for the dirtiest team its the Bruins, there all a bunch of thugs and goons

[Chadd 916]

Some people just need to accept the fact that their team is involved in a high number of dirty plays. There are a lot of Bruins fans in denial in this topic. I had hoped that people would be able to have a discussion without falling into home team favoritism, I can see I expected too much from some of you.