The Loop
Milan Lucic hunting down and assaulting a Tampa Bay Lightning rookie is pretty terrifying
For some context, let's begin with the hit from Tampa Bay Lightning rookie Mathieu Joseph, which was a borderline dirty play. Unfortunately, the only video we could find was on reddit, which you can watch by clicking on this link.
In real speed, I'd imagine that looked pretty bad, but in slow-mo, to be fair, it doesn't look THAT bad. It's a dangerous hit by Joseph, but I don't think he was trying to smash Kris Russell's face into the glass. Apparently, no penalty was called on Joseph, which creates a bit of a problem as that will immediately irk the Edmonton Oilers. You'll noticed Milan Lucic at the beginning of that video was quite irked, and that's where things get interesting.
A full four minutes later, Lucic practically hunted down and assaulted Joseph with a hit away from the play that certainly looked pre-meditated to anyone with two functioning eyes. Have a look and decide for yourself:
You want to take matters into your own hands, that's fine, but that is an aggressive and terrifying way to do it. As expected, there were plenty of differing opinions on the matter:
Call it scumbaggery, call it old school, whatever you want, but I think the point we could all agree on is that this was a blatant blind side hit on a guy who didn't even have the puck. And I believe fighting and standing up for your teammate still has a place in the game, but Lucic should probably get a suspension for this one.