On purpose? By accident? Somewhere in between??

I don't know who tries to cut a guy like that on purpose... but who knows. We know Matt Cooke has a history. He said he wanted to end that reputation though... has he cleaned his game up?

I think it was an accident... but I have no idea.

BTW, Dreger tweeted that something like 12 seconds before that play happened, the puck was flipped up on the mesh (out of play) but it went unnoticed. Nothing like adding insult to injury.

And kevlar socks... they can't be that uncomfortable, can they? Probably a lot less uncomfortable than having your Achilles cut. But as rtsen pointed out, it's similar to the visor debate. I think it's a lot less intrusive to wear a kevlar sock though, but I've never put one on.

There has to be fabrics that are about as "comfortable" as regular socks but that also provide better protection against cuts? Kevlar light...

So apparently Chris Vande Velde wears them and says they feel just like a normal sock. Ben Eager also wears them. Seems not many guys in the NHL do. Can't imagine why guys wouldn't wear them even it there's like a 0.0001% chance or lower of getting cut. I'd imagine Karlsson will wear them from now on. Some guys do go barefoot in skates though, which to me is equal parts weird and gross.

I am actually surprised that this type of thing does not happen more often. It's a tough pill for the Sens to swallow and I can understand their frustration(especially since it's Cooke).

As an Ottawa fan and Karlsson being one of my favourites, I dont think Cooke intentionally meant to injure him. On that note however I believe this was a completely wreckless play as no matter the speed of the game you would know exactly where your foot is and I do believe this could have been avoided should Cooke have not been so careless. To me this kind of play should be a penalty in the NHL just like a high stick would be, accident or not, players are responsible for a piece of equipment they use. Players should be aware of what their bodies are doing and be responsible for an action like this just as they would a high stick as I am pretty sure we can all agree we have better control over our feet moreso than a stick. But since there is no rule on this sort of thing relating to skates the right calls were made. Cooke did not mean to do it on purpose and obviously felt badly for what happened, I just think they should be looking at plays like this and start giving out penalties for somebody getting injured with a skate. Hope it makes sense :p

I don't know. It's him, so definitely the play is subject to scrutiny... I can't tell if it was intentional but WTF was he doing raising his skate up like that? I could see if in motion, in the process of making a check he might leave his feet - but he clearly lifts one skate and lowers it. I don't play, so to those that do: if it wasn't on purpose what was Cooke trying to accomplish there?

Feel terrible for Ottawa... I like Karlsson and he's also in my pool.

hemmerlady wrote:I don't know. It's him, so definitely the play is subject to scrutiny... I can't tell if it was intentional but WTF was he doing raising his skate up like that? I could see if in motion, in the process of making a check he might leave his feet - but he clearly lifts one skate and lowers it. I don't play, so to those that do: if it wasn't on purpose what was Cooke trying to accomplish there?

Feel terrible for Ottawa... I like Karlsson and he's also in my pool.

Well, it's not uncommon to lift your leg like that to get leverage under the other guys leg (think slewfoot). But I think now that you pointed it out, it looks higher than it probably should be, however. It just looks weird to me. Some have argued that he was just trying to pin his leg between Karlsson's legs (which is a standard hockey play as a guy can't go anywhere when you pin him that way). Karlsson had his legs closed (since he isn't a whore? lol), so that wouldn't have allowed Cooke to get his leg in there... so it's POSSIBLE it was a hockey play gone bad. Doesn't really look "right" to me, but plays happen so fast you just don't really know. It's easy to pick it apart frame-by-frame and go all analysis crazy on it, but you lose a lot of truth behind it such as the fact that the majority of that play happens all in under a second.

As much as I dislike Cooke, I have to wonder how a guy would think he could get away with taking a skate to the back of someone's leg. I think it would be difficult to make it look like an accident without hitting a flukey area like Cooke did (under the top of the boot).

And of course Chris Simon proves me a little wrong on that theory since he figured he could sneak in stomping on someone in a scrum on the boards (dipshit).