NHL sends a message

Matt Cooke is an easy target. His YouTube catalog of dirty hits is as impressive as Scorsese's movie reel.

Cooke is the type of player who keeps medical trainers and orthopedic surgeons employed. He keeps concussion baseline tests from growing dusty on the shelf of team doctors.

Cooke is a menace to NHL society, which is why it was hardly shocking that the Pittsburgh Penguins cheap-shot artist would be the first to test the NHL's mettle mere days after the league and its general managers vowed to crack down harder on blatant head shots.

When Cooke nailed New York Rangers defenseman and former Minnesota Mr. Hockey Ryan McDonagh, he teed it up for the NHL. The league hit it out of the park with a rest-of-the-regular-season (10 games) and first-round-of-the-playoffs (up to seven more) suspension.

Cooke put his team in an awful spot.

It's been his owner, hockey legend Mario Lemieux, who has been the most outspoken in recent weeks, saying he needed to "rethink whether I want to be part" of a league that didn't send strong, clear messages to players who threaten the safety of others.

Lemieux wrote a letter to Commissioner Gary Bettman proposing that teams be fined between $50,000 and $1 million for each suspension to its players depending on the length (double for repeat offenders in the same season). In the case of Cooke, a repeat offender, the fine would come out to $2 million (if the Penguins' first-round matchup goes at least five games).

So with the Penguins speaking loudly and many critics accusing them of being hypocrites because they employ Cooke, Cooke then does this. "The suspension is warranted because that's exactly the kind of hit we're trying to get out of the game," Shero said of Cooke. "Head shots have no place in hockey. We've told Matt in no uncertain terms that this kind of action on the ice is unacceptable and cannot happen."

Impressive statement by Shero. Yes, he probably had no choice after being so outspoken, but in a league where teams always protect their own, Shero and the Penguins deserve kudos.

The onus is on the players to stop targeting heads. "The accidents we'll take, but you've got to eliminate the intentional ones," Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa said.

The reality is, the game is fast. In a sport where there are 55,000 hits a year, according to the NHL, there's just no way to legislate injuries out of the game. This is why, if the game's going to get safer, players also have to protect themselves.

"Anybody who has played hockey has been taught that you don't cut across the middle with your head down," San Jose coach Todd McLellan said. "You don't lunge and reach and expose your head on a loose puck. When a D-man pinches, you get up against the boards and you protect yourself. You don't turn your back to an oncoming forechecker.

And in cases where it's clearly the fault of the hitter, like Cooke, you hammer them with a significant suspension. They'll learn then.

There used to be a slew-footing problem in the NHL. Not anymore. There used to be an epidemic of cross-checks and butt-ends. Not anymore. There used to be bench-clearing brawls. Not anymore.

Players will always adapt as long as they know what the standard is and see consistent enforcement of it.

Just look how quickly players have adjusted to the interference standard, which ironically is why the game has reached warp speed.

The league and players can decrease the blows to the head if they work together.