Raffi Torres apologizes for another bad hit, but will he ever change?
San Jose Sharks forward Raffi Torres had to apologize again for another suspension-worthy hit. But will he change the way he plays this time?
By
Adam Gretz
•
6 min read
San Jose Sharks forward Raffi Torres released a statement on Thursday afternoon announcing that he has accepted his 41-game suspension from the NHL and apologized for the hit that knocked Anaheim Ducks forward Jakob Silfverberg out of a recent exhibition game.
"I accept the 41-game suspension handed down to me by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety." Torres said in a statement through the Sharks.
"I worked extremely hard over the last two years following reconstructive knee surgery to resume my NHL career, and this is the last thing I wanted to happen. I am disappointed I have put myself in a position to be suspended again. I sincerely apologize to Jakob for the hit that led to this suspension, and I’m extremely thankful that he wasn’t seriously injured as a result of the play. I also want to apologize to my Sharks teammates and the organization."
Silfverberg is expected to be able to play in the Ducks' season opener on Saturday night against, of all teams, the Sharks.
The biggest issue is what's going to happen when Torres returns to the Sharks lineup at the halfway point of the season. Will this be the wake-up call that forces him to change his ways? Or it will it only be a matter of when, and not if, he does something like this again to another unsuspecting opponent? If his history in the NHL is any indicator, it's probably more of the latter, and as of this moment his words on Thursday are empty until he actually does something to avoid putting himself in these situations.
This isn't the first time he has had to apologize for a dirty hit after he was hammered with a lengthy suspension.
During the 2012 playoffs, when Torres was still a member of the Arizona Coyotes, he earned what was originally a 25-game suspension from the league for a vicious hit on Chicago Blackhawks forward Marian Hossa that not only knocked him out for the remainder of the series (which the Coyotes went on to win), but forced him to leave the ice on a stretcher.
Here is what Torres said after that incident in a similar apology about being sorry for hurting an opponent with a nasty hit.
"My main concern is for the healthy recovery of Marian Hossa, and I hope that he will be able to get back on the ice to compete again soon. I sincerely regret injuring Marian. Regarding the severity of the suspension issued, I will take the next few days to decide whether or not to appeal the decision."
That suspension was later reduced to 21 games.
Not only was that one of the longest suspensions in league history for an on-ice incident (even after it was reduced), but it also came just one year after Matt Cooke, another repeat offender in the NHL with a lengthy history of bad hits and suspensions from the league, was given a 17-game suspension (10 regular season games, plus the first round of that year's playoffs) and was basically told to either change his ways or get out of the league.
Put all of that together and it should have been the wake-up call for Raffi Torres. That should have been the moment where something clicked. He even tried to say all of the right things when he said that he wanted to focus on "being a little smarter." Later, he talked about his desire to follow in Cooke's footsteps when it comes to changing his playing style.
So how did that play out in the seasons that followed the Hossa incident? The numbers are stunning. He has played in just 56 regular season and playoff games and logged 722 minutes of ice-time. During that time he has been guilty of two hits (the Silfverberg hit and a hit on Jarret Stoll in the 2012-13 playoffs) that resulted in a total of 47 games in suspensions.
That means in the three years since he sent Marian Hossa off the ice on a stretcher, apologized for it, and vowed to focus on "being a little smarter," he has only actually played in nine more games than he's been suspended for.
At some point, the apologies aren't enough.
And really, short of a lifetime ban (and that will not happen) there is only so much the league can do about this kind of nonsense, because each of his past three suspensions have been extremely severe. These haven't been light slaps on the wrist. The league has hammered him, repeatedly.
And he keeps doing it.
At some point the league has to consider finding a way to punish the teams that continue to bring in and play players like this when they continue to cross the line (admittedly, what that punishment is, I don't know).
To his credit, Sharks general manager Doug Wilson supported the NHL's decision to suspend Torres and released a statement of his own on Thursday. And even though he prefaced it by saying he didn't believe there was any "malicious intent" on the part of Torres, he called the hit unacceptable and the type of play that has no place in the game.
"The Sharks organization fully supports the NHL's supplementary discipline decision regarding Raffi. While we do not believe there was any malicious intent, this type of hit is unacceptable and has no place in our game. There is a difference between playing hard and crossing the line and there is no doubt, in this instance, Raffi crossed that line. We’re very thankful that Jakob was not seriously injured as a result of this play."
Here is the problem with that: The Sharks knew exactly what they were getting when they traded for Torres late in the 2012-13 season.
They knew exactly what they were getting when they re-signed him to a three-year contract extension after he missed the final six games of a playoff series because of a hit Los Angeles King forward Stoll (a hit that Wilson not only defended at the time, but did so in a manner that resulted in the team receiving a $100,000 fine from the league).
This was a guy that even before he played a single game for the Sharks organization had been suspended a total of 27 games and fined three times in what was at the time only a 687-game (regular season and playoffs) career. During one particularly appalling three-game stretch during the 2011-12 season, just one year before the Sharks traded for him, he targetted the head of then-Boston Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference on this play that went unpunished both during the game and after the fact by the league (even though it was reviewed)...
In the very next game, he earned a $2,500 from the league for elbowing Colorado Avalanche defenseman Jan Hejda in the head.
In the very next game after that, just hours after the $2,500 fine was handed down, he earned a two-game suspension for hitting Minnesota Wild defenseman Nate Prosser in the head.
Fourty-three games later in the playoffs he delivered the hit that earned him the lengthy suspension for knocking out Marian Hossa.
One year later, the Sharks traded for him. And then watched him play just 16 games for the team before earning his next suspension (the Stoll hit), after which they signed him to a three-year contract extension.
They knew this was the type of element he brought to the table. And they still did it.
As long as teams are willing to take chances like this, these types of plays are going to continue to happen. Because time and time again players like Raffi Torres show that they just can't change.
Or aren't willing to change.
