The Toronto Maple Leafs, yet again, were victimized by someone who is horrendous at their job.
Tuesday afternoon prior to the Toronto Maple Leafs taking on the St. Lous Blues, the Department of Player Safety, if you can call it that, announced that Morgan Rielly would be suspended for five games for his cross check on Ridly Greig on Saturday night.
A couple things need to be cleared up from our point of view and that is, Morgan Rielly was careless with his stick and deserves a suspension.
With that being said, the clown of DoPS, also known as George Parros who is typical inconsistent was now consistent with a suspension and that being going overboard on a Maple Leafs player.
George Parros Does His Thing - Thoughts on the Morgan Rielly Suspension
Both sides of fans can debate whether or not Greig deserved what he got after he showed up the Maple Leafs with a slap shot that led to the cross check.
After scoring his goal, Rielly skated to him delivering a cross check to the upper part of his chest, which Greig caught a piece of the stick with his hande and accidently re-directed it to his face. Greig would immediately flop to the ground, act injured and skate off the ice. Whether right or wrong for what Greig did, the reaction by Rielly deserves some sort of punishment.
The two problems with this incident is that it is not part of the game and the second factor is that Parros has created such a horrendous precedent for suspensions that nobody had any idea what the outcome from the cross check was going to be.
Earlier this season, Calgary Flames forward Andrew Mangiapane cross checked Jared McCann in the back of the neck while the Krakken forward lay on the ice defenseless causing his face to be the principal point of contact with the ice. While this occurrence was during the play, it was also a lot more dangerous and forceful of an incident. Mangiapane was suspended for one game by Parros.
A much more relatable incident would have been from the 2020-21 season when after a Maple Leafs vs Oilers game, Alex Chiasson skated towards Jimmy Vesey and delivered a cross check to the face. It is as similar occurrence as you can find, the only difference was that in that incident, the game was over. Chiasson earned a one game suspension by Parros.
The interesting part about the five games that Parros handed out is that it just one game under the minimum required for an independent arbitrator to review the length of suspension. It would have been better to get the six games, have Brad Treliving take it to an arbitrator and compare the suspension to previous acts to show how much of a joke Parros is.
Any Maple Leafs fan I've spoken with are not saying there shouldn't be a suspension, but rather that the issue is that the NHL shows no consistency in its suspensions.