Gotta Be Five

Alex Burrows is an interesting character. I had the pleasure of watching him be a super-pest and decent scorer in the AHL with the Manitoba Moose before he got his shot at the big time with the Vancouver Canucks. He was always a likeable guy at the AHL level, but there were times where he'd give into some dark idea and do something ridiculously dumb. That has always been the knock on Burrows, but it seemed that as he got older he began to control these urges to do dastardly things on the ice that often hurt his team.

After tonight's game between the Ottawa Senators and the New Jersey Devils, it seems as though Burrows fell into some darkness because his attack on Taylor Hall will certainly see him sit for a few games at least.

What is Alex Burrows thinking as he's kneeing Taylor Hall in the head? This isn't the UFC or some sort of wrestling match. Kneeing in all forms in hockey is a punishable offence, yet here we have Burrows delivering knees to the head of Taylor Hall as they lay on the ice. What's scarier is that Hall is lying face-down on the ice, meaning the act of kneeing Hall in the head could potentially drive his face into the ice. There is zero excuse for this, and Alex Burrows should pay with a hefty suspension for this. Thankfully, Hall was no worse for wear after emerging from the pile of humanity.

According to Hall, he told Devils reporter Amanda Stein, "He punched me in the back of the head like 10 times. He kind of lost his mind."

#NJDevils: Taylor Hall on Burrows: “He punched me in the back of the head like 10 times. He kind of lost his mind.”

Hall told me after he didn’t know it was Burrows’ knee in his head. He just felt something and his teammates told him afterwards it was the knee.

— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) February 7, 2018

Where Burrows might get nailed to the wall is that the officials had him tied up on top of Hall, and that's when he delivered the two shots to Hall's head with his knee. One could say that in the scrum, there may have been a reaction in trying to get up or something along those lines. When you watch the last replay, it's pretty clear that because his upper body was tied up, he resorted to the next best option he had in trying to deliver some justice to Hall for the solid and clean check he threw seconds earlier.

The unfortunate thing is that despite past indiscretions on the ice, Burrows has kept his name out of the Department of Player Safety's crosshairs for some time. With his record being basically expunged for past incidents, he doesn't qualify as a repeat offender in the eyes of the Department of Player Safety. Because of this, I'm guessing he gets five games for the two knee-shots he delivered.

Some may say that's a heavy price for Burrows to pay, but Hall could have been seriously hurt. Preventing something like this from ever happening again is entirely why the Department of Player Safety would be right to levy the maximum penalty they can as per the CBA.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!