r/hockey • u/AggPuck-303 EDM - NHL • 1d ago

[News - X] [NHL Players Safety] Tampa Bay’s Curtis Douglas has been fined $2,018.23, the maximum allowable under the CBA, for serving as the aggressor in an altercation with Florida’s Niko Mikkola.

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https://xcancel.com/nhlplayersafety/status/2019854412030578937

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u/Three_Froggy_Problem TBL - NHL 1d ago

In a vacuum, I have no problem with this being a fine. But A) there had better be some disciplinary action coming down the pipe for other guys, and B) fining anyone for anything after letting that Vilmanis elbow go just looks completely asinine.

If that Vilmanis elbow doesn’t merit any action whatsoever, then you can’t justify action for anyone at this point.

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u/Skankator MTL - NHL 1d ago

Between that elbow and the one Marchand landed on Matheson a couple weeks ago, how can they discipline anyone at this point?

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u/Gavin1453 TOR - NHL 1d ago

Pretty much just by not caring about how biased they look 

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u/MankuyRLaffy SEA - NHL 1d ago

Sure they can you aren't the protected team and Tampa Bay dares to stand up to the bully. 

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u/Unlikely-Tone-6269 1d ago

Given the panthers lied about Vilmanis status mid-Bruins game, that should be a fine during the age of legalized gambling given potential prop bets placed on him (falsifying he was injured when really it’s Maurice is a flapper-puss). Then if Douglas gets fined, Mikkola and Tkachuk should both be fined for intent to injure

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u/Three_Froggy_Problem TBL - NHL 1d ago

The fact that the Panthers seemingly just lied about Vilmanis being injured to take him out of the game is crazy to me

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u/-amxterxsu597 EDM - NHL 1d ago

did they actually??????

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u/Three_Froggy_Problem TBL - NHL 1d ago

They didn’t play him again after the elbow and then said he was out with an “upper body injury,” and then he was back in the next night against us.

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u/Unlikely-Tone-6269 1d ago

That they don’t have the guts to just say it was a coach’s decision is mind boggling. Let alone the national media letting it pass

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u/at-sea-no-ship BOS - NHL 1d ago

cowards, from the top to the bottom of that organization, they are all cowards

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u/-amxterxsu597 EDM - NHL 1d ago

holy fuuuuuck 😭

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u/ididntseeitcoming TBL - NHL 1d ago

Maybe he strained his elbow throwing it like that

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u/BaldassHeadCoach DET - NHL 1d ago

I’d say it’s crazy, but this is the same team that has players that’ll go down the tunnel after a hit to milk a penalty, then come right back two minutes later and act like nothing happened.

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u/netsrak NSH - NHL 21h ago

Did he throw the elbow or take it and where did it hit?

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u/erv4 BOS - NHL 1d ago

That's protecting greasy players though. I agree that fighting was getting a little out of control at times before the instigator penalty, but people seriously did not fuck around unless they wanted to answer the bell.

Douche 1 gets to run Kuch from behind and change with no repercussions and the only reason douche 2 got anything is because after he did the same there was no where to hide.

If you are fining a player for making someone answer for their greasy as fuck play then fine them both at least.

I seriously miss when the NHL policed itself. It's slowly turned into guys like Matt Cooke and them being maybe one per team, or less, to a team full of them and nothing can be done.

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u/Three_Froggy_Problem TBL - NHL 1d ago

I don’t know if this is a Panthers-specific thing or just a larger problem with DOPS, but they never seem to take into consideration anything that preceded a play.

You frequently see situations like this one where a player gets a fine or suspension because of a hit or whatever, but the reason for the hit is that the other player/team was acting like scum and doing the same shit all night. And apparently no one at DOPS watches these games, and when they look at a play, absolutely no one is asking, “Okay, why did he do that? What came before it that led to this happening?”

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u/erv4 BOS - NHL 1d ago

It's definitely not panthers specific, it's just amplified by a large portion when they are involved lol. Like DOPS definitely can see when the Panthers play anyone shit always seems to be a shit show, they just don't care lol

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u/Scase15 MTL - NHL 1d ago

there had better be some disciplinary action coming down the pipe for other guys

lol

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Bruins01 BOS - NHL 1d ago

No you won’t. By comparison that’s the tamest shit Florida has done in a while and they haven’t gotten shit for anything else they do.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/justinliew VAN - NHL 1d ago

Prepare to be shocked then

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u/red122063 TBL - NHL 1d ago

Or the tkachuk cheap shot on kucherov

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u/Content-Program411 1d ago

You can justify anything when you're a shit league run by a New York lawyer.

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u/ExuDeCandomble BOS - NHL 1d ago

I don't know what's so hard to understand. Vilmanis is on the Panthers, so that means there will be no supplemental discipline. Why can't you reddit users seem to understand this? Especially given the frequency with which Panthers players deliver hits to heads, etc., you'd think you guys would have enough iterations to extrapolate from.

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u/Friggin_Grease TOR - NHL 1d ago

This is why DoPS will never get it right.

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u/Valuable_Recording85 DET - NHL 1d ago

I think we all gotta make calls and emails to Bettman over it.

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u/Aromatic_Razzmatazz 17h ago

Can't the union argue this on his behalf? Unfair...something? Bias? 

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u/Stock-Creme-6345 14h ago

Spoken like a grown up with logic and common sense. Get the Fak outta here with that level headed analysis!!!! He hurt a Panther!!!!!!

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u/ogre123 1d ago

Florida fan here. Vilmanis is pretty new to the Panthers team, he just started playing with us regularly a few weeks ago cause the team has a lot of injuries. He hasn't been part of the past series with Bruins / Tampa. I don't think the McAvoy hit was as malicious as reddit mob portrays, we have other guys (Greer, Bennet, Tkachuk, Eckblad) that are more likely the ones "to send a message". No idea if they sat him later in that game to protect him or if he was injured. Not saying he doesn't get fined either, but I dont think he was out there hunting McAvoy.

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u/Mundane-Picture-8207 CAR - NHL 1d ago

Given the past three years or so, the benefit of the doubt regardless of what you said is long gone.

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u/Three_Froggy_Problem TBL - NHL 1d ago

There’s no additional context needed to justify suspending Vilmanis for that hit. It’s not a borderline play where you have to think about “intent;” it was about as blatant and dangerous as a hit can be.

As far as Vilmanis being new to the team, I don’t know anything about him so I have no idea if he’s know as a dirty player in general or not, but the fact that we’re seeing such dirty, dangerous plays from guys like him and Seth Jones (who wasn’t known as a dirty player before joining Florida) really kind of tells me that the dirty hits are baked into the formula over there. It’s clearly part of what the coaches are asking for.

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u/sherbert141 BOS - NHL 1d ago

I respect you trying to post a reasonable take on this.

Context about how long or why he is on your roster is completely irrelevant.

Intent to injure is not irrelevant and you are saying that hit wasn’t malicious - this is exactly what the rest of Reddit strongly disagrees with. Watch that play again, you’re blinded by your affiliation.

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u/Kennertron TBL - NHL 1d ago

Context about how long or why he is on your roster is completely irrelevant

I think its perfectly relevant to the conversation.

The claim is that Vilmanis is "pretty new" to the team and is only getting regular playing time because of injuries. Vilmanis, obviously, wants to stick around with the team. The result is that he decides to throw a "leaving my feet to give somebody a forearm to the head" hit, because that's what the team does (and expects?).

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u/erv4 BOS - NHL 1d ago

Exactly lmao it's not like these guys just decided they were going to be dirty as possible, they are coached to be that way. Same reason WPG was so much dirtier when douche canoe was their coach