Davison’s hit last night? No problem at all, perfectly legal. Kesler’s hit? Definitely questionable and deserving of a major (but no suspension).

Burrows? Well, here’s the hit…

…and some post game opinions…

“I think our players were responding to cheap hits,” Trotz said. “I expect the league is going to have to protect the players. Leaving you feet, head-hunting, we want to get them out of the league. I’m sure the league’s looking at them right now. – Barry Trotz

“It was a physical game, it was intense. I guess they took offence to some of the hits we threw … I saw (all three hits) on the ice and I thought they were physical hits a good league has.” – Alain Vigneault

I expect the league to protect the players; not only our players but the players around the league.” – Barry Trotz

“It seemed we weren’t allowed to hit them. Every time we threw a good, strong, clean hit, there was a scrum after. Hitting is part of the game. There’s nothing in the rule book that says we can’t hit a Nashville player. It was a physical game, it was intense. – Alain Vigneault

“That’s what we have to cut down on in this league,” Arnott said. “Guys are getting hurt because of that and then there’s no calls for it. It’s very frustrating, because there’s two (officials) out there and the game gets out of hand like that and we end up on the short end of the stick.” – Jason Arnott

“The puck was in the air. I don’t want to injure the guy. I know the guy. … I was just trying to finish my checks out there.” – Alex Burrows

All in all, Preds fans can be heartened by the effort of their team.  The penalties they took tonight were generally understandable acts of retaliation against Vancouver cheap shots, rather than simple “out of position so haul down the opponent” situations.  – The Forechecker

(And, in case you were curious where the normal cast of characters were in such a spirited game, Mike Brown was scratched, Hordichuk did nothing in his 3:09 of icetime and Jordin Tootoo sat with a lower body injury.)

Whether Burrows remembers jumping or not (it’s adorable he doesn’t remember), the fact is he did. Hell Burrows could probably have leveled more damage had he stayed on his feet and plowed into him body to body. His elbows weren’t extended but with Dumont’s head down the hit inevitably landed too high for comfort. Or, rather, what I suspect the league will deem as an acceptable comfort level for PR purposes. Burrows is a pest yes, but not a headhunter. Despite that his mistake was (a) leaving his feet and (b) where he hit Dumont which should get him suspended (my guess would be a game or two unless he insulted Elisha Cuthbert on the dismount).

But what the hell do I know? As you can see from this running list of suspensions, the numbers vary greatly depending on what it is the actual player did. One of the league’s huge problems is that the penalty for various on-ice crimes often make absolutely zero sense (Avery sits for six for uttering ’90s slang while, by comparison, Ohlund sat for four for slashing Koivu’s kneecap off last year).

I’m with Trotz on this: for the protection of these guys going forward a hit like that should be, officially speaking, frowned on.

If that was Tootoo leveling Wellwood, Demitra or Daniel Sedin we’d be asking for the same thing.