Johnson Gets Big Penalty

Matt Johnson has reached the Mike Tyson stage in the category of dollars per punch.

But Johnson is paying for the status.

The NHL enforced Rule 52a on the King enforcer Monday, suspending him for 12 games for hammering the New York Rangers’ Jeff Beukeboom in the back of the head in a game Thursday at the Great Western Forum.

The suspension means Johnson will forfeit $95,121.96 of his $650,000 salary to the NHL’s Emergency Assistance Fund.

Rule 52a involves deliberate injury of an opponent, and deliberations were brief after an early Monday hearing before Colin Campbell, the league’s director of operations and Beukeboom’s former coach with the Rangers.

After listening to Johnson and Dave Taylor, the King vice president and general manager, Campbell’s judgment and sentence were swift and severe.

“A punch from behind by Mr. Johnson resulted in a head injury to Mr. Beukeboom, and the league has made clear that deliberate blows to the head--particularly those which cause injury to the head of an opponent--will be treated severely,” Campbell said in a statement.

The league said before the season that it would target blows to the head after a spate of concussions took away several NHL stars last season, among them the Mighty Ducks’ Paul Kariya.

“Also considered was the fact that Johnson was the recipient of supplementary punishment on two occasions last season,” Campbell added.

On one of those occasions, he was fined $1,000. On the other, he was suspended for two exhibitions and two regular-season games for slashing the Mighty Ducks’ Todd Ewen.

This incident arose at 12:39 of the third period of the Rangers’ 5-1 victory over the Kings when Johnson sailed in on Beukeboom, near the boards behind the King goal, and pounded him with a right behind the head.

Beukeboom hit the ice hard, suffering a concussion that kept him out of the Ranger game at San Jose Saturday night.

He was held out of practice Monday at New York and will not play Wednesday at Buffalo.

Johnson said he was provoked into the action by Beukeboom’s tripping of the Kings’ Glen Murray earlier in the period.

Beukeboom received a two-minute penalty for the infraction.

“I felt he went after our best player,” Johnson said. “Everybody on the building saw that what he did was very dangerous. I think slew-footing is more dangerous than punching a guy.”

Slew-footing is tripping a player from behind, and it also has been treated harshly by the league this season, with suspensions meted out. In this case, though, Campbell did not punish Beukeboom.

Johnson said Beukeboom hit the Kings’ Ray Ferraro last season, saying, “He hit Ray from behind and hurt his knee and [Ferraro has] never been the same since.”

Ferraro was limited to 40 games last season because of the injury, which required surgery. He wears a brace on his left knee.

“If they had called ‘slew-footing’ on Beukeboom earlier, this might not have happened,” Ferraro said.

Said Johnson: “What I did was probably wrong. But I felt I had to do something, and what I did--whether it was right or wrong--was because in the end, I have to protect my players.”

The suspension began with Saturday’s 5-0 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks and will run through the Dec. 20 game at Chicago.

That means Johnson can resume playing Dec. 22 at Pittsburgh.

In 16 games, he has one shot and one goal. He leads the Kings with 49 penalty minutes.

Johnson is the 16th player suspended during this regular season, and four were set down during the exhibition season. The suspension is the longest of the season--the previous longest was seven games, given to Tampa Bay’s Andrei Nazarov--and the second-longest in King history.

It’s also the longest in the league since former King Tony Granato was set down for 15 games for hitting Neil Wilkinson, then of Chicago, on the head with his stick on Feb. 9, 1994.

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Masters of Suspension

The longest suspensions in NHL history:

Player, Team Offense (Suspension, Date)

Dale Hunter, Wash.: Cross-checking Pierre Turgeon (21 games, April, 1993)

Tom Lysiak, Chi.: Physical abuse of linesman (20 games, October, 1983)

Wilf Paiement, Colo.: Stick-swinging with Dennis Polonich (15 games, October, 1978)

Dave Brown, Phil.: Cross-checking Tomas Sandstrom (15 games, October, 1987)

Tony Granato, Kings: Slashing Neil Wilkinson (15 games, February, 1994)

Ted Green, Boston: Hitting Wayne Maki in head with stick (13 games, September, 1969)

David Shaw, N.Y. Rangers: High-sticking Mario Lemieux (12 games, October, 1989)

Ron Hextall, Phil.: Jumping Chris Chelios (12 games, May, 1989)

Matt Johnson, Kings: Deliberately injuring Jeff Beukeboom (12 games, November, 1998)