Player Safety Appears to Have Made a Decision on Logan Cooley's Low-Bridge Hit on Mitch Marner
The last few weeks have brought about a lot of suspension-worthy plays and there was another one on Sunday, which targeted Maple Leafs star Mitch Marner.
A very rare but exciting play that has seemingly disappeared in the modern game is a well-timed and executed hip check. With the speed of the game today, it's very hard to time a hip check properly and most of the time it can lead to a serious lower-body injury.
Last night during the game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Utah Hockey Club, Logan Cooley looked to have tried to execute a hip check in open ice against Mitch Marner, but it turned out to be more of a low-bridge hit that targeted Marner's knees.
As Marner was traversing the neutral zone with speed, he passed the puck to his teammate waiting at the blue-line, before Cooley took him down with an ill-advised lower-body check.
Perhaps Marner was too fast or shifty for Cooley, which forced him to take a different angle on the hit, or that Cooley slipped at the last second as he was trying to shuffle his skates in anticipation of a Marner deke.
Nevertheless, it was a dangerous low-bridge play to the Maple Leafs' leading scorer and his teammates did not take too lightly to the play either.
Is this a suspension-worthy play? Marner was in a very vulnerable spot and Cooley missed everything but his knees on the play. However, perhaps because Marner was able to get right back up, it changed the minds of the officials and the NHL's Department of Player Safety.
After the Ryan Reaves' suspension and then Zach Whitecloud escaping the wrath of George Parros, how Player Safety rules on hits like this one is certainly something to keep an eye on.
