The St. Louis Blues had an altercation with some of the New York Rangers at the end of their game on January 11. For once, it was not the Blues that got in trouble with the league.
Normally, in recent memory anyway, any time the St. Louis Blues were involved in anything that included the NHL’s Discipline office, we knew they would be without the services of a player for a game or few. At the very least, said player, would be a little lighter in the wallet.
For once, the shoe is on the other foot. The Blues escape, rightly so, without any discipline handed out against them.
With the game all but decided and St. Louis on the power play at the end of their January 11, 2020 game against the Rangers, Jacob Trouba repeatedly slashed Vince Dunn. The last two were especially rough.
Dunn had enough. The Blues defender, known mainly for his offensive skills, turned around and landed a couple solid shots right to the head of Trouba.
What was unknown to many of us, since the game was already over as far as time on the clock, was penalties were handed out. Dunn got two minutes for roughing and Trouba got a five minute penalty for the slash and a game misconduct.
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The Blues were not the beneficiary of a power play. However, at least they know the league actually did look into the incident and St. Louis is not the only team that gets penalized for things that used to just be part of the game.
Trouba will be fined $5,000. That might not sound like much, especially for a guy making $8 million per season.
Nevertheless, it is the heftiest fine the league can levy for an incident like this, based on the collective bargaining agreement. That means the league saw it as a cheap shot that needed to be punished.
That’s exactly what it was. Who knows what incident earlier in the game spurred this kind of reaction, but Trouba had no business chopping at Dunn the way he did.
You can see the incident at the end of that five minute video.
Trouba deserved to be punished and was. The only worry was if anything might have happened against Dunn.
We all know he was sticking up for himself. Despite not seeming like the toughest guy out there, Dunn is not one to be trifled with.
Still, you never know with the NHL. They seem to be going in a route to police the game from the outside instead of players doing it themselves. It would not have shocked anyone for Dunn to get a fine too, but thankfully that is not the case.
I still don’t understand what got Trouba in a twist. Maybe this is something from earlier in the game or maybe it goes back to his days with the Winnipeg Jets.
Who knows. All we know is his checking account is $5k lighter. For once the Blues were not the focus of the league’s discipline.