Talk Hockey

The regular season hasn't even started yet, but with all the suspensions being given out, one would think that it has. In his first year as the league's new disciplinarian, Brendan Shanahan has become a very busy man. Yesterday, Shanahan handed out the longest suspension of the year. James Wisniewski was suspended for the rest of the preseason and an addional eight regular season games. I completely think that the suspension is justified and Wisniewski is lucky that it wasn't longer.

Wisniewski has been suspended for an incident that occured in Friday night's Wild-Jackets game. After the horn sounded signaling the end of the game, the Jackets defencemen made a very cheap, and illegal hit to the head of Cal Clutterbuck. Wisniewski is a repeat offender and has already been suspended more than once in his career, most recently his extremely late hit on Brent Sebrook at the end of the 2010-11 season. Hockey does not need hits like that in the game, especially the preseason.

"I found out about it between periods. It was a tough one to swallow," Jackets head coach Scott Arniel said after the game. "Obviously, the League has a mandate, and they're trying to really set a tone here early on in the season, and it was harsh. It was very harsh.

"It was a lot harsher than I was expecting, but there's not much we can do about it. We've got to move forward -- they've made their decision. We've already put our best foot forward when it came to our side of the story, and obviously the League felt that, being a repeat offender, a blow to the head, that was the call that needed to be made."