NHL May Be Sending Message Via Ducks

Didn’t you used to be able to hit in hockey?

Maybe not anymore.

The NHL got tough Tuesday, kicked the Mighty Ducks right in their downy keisters. Ruslan Salei is now serving a 10-game suspension for the shove in the back he gave Dallas Star center Mike Modano; Pascal Trepanier received a five-game suspension for the elbow to the head he administered to the Stars’ Joe Nieuwendyk. Jim McKenzie will sit out four games for whaling away on the head of Dallas’ Darryl Sydor.

Frankly, of all the physical actions taken by the suddenly bullying Ducks it was McKenzie’s furious pummeling of Sydor, who was lying face down on the ice and made no attempt to fight back, that seemed most dangerous and egregious. In fact, Sydor’s fractured eye socket was also the most serious injury of the evening.

Now these suspensions will not likely appease the 125 of you well-written Dallas fans who have e-mailed, several in obscenely creative ways, about how evil were the Duck actions. Those of you who demanded Salei receive a season’s suspension, or, for the more forgiving of you, half a season, 10 games isn’t going to do it. (By the way Duck fans, have you no e-mail capabilities? A little support here would be helpful).

But Salei’s 10-game punishment is severe. There has been a 21-game suspension given to Washington’s Dale Hunter in 1993; a 20-game suspension to Chicago’s Tom Lysiak in 1983; and three 15-game suspensions. And then 10-game suspensions.

When Salei shoved a speeding, off-balance Modano in the back Saturday night, he never expected this result. Modano smashed into the boards behind Anaheim’s goal and his neck twisted as if elastic and his head made a terrible thud when it hit the boards. For more than 10 frightening minutes Modano lay on the ice before he was removed by stretcher. The final diagnosis--a slight concussion and sprained neck--was a blessedly benign outcome.

Salei was truly sorry afterward. His shove of Modano hadn’t been hard, but it had been poorly timed. Modano was already off-balance and off the puck. But you see harder hits, from the back, nearly every game. Trepanier’s elbow seemed thrown in more anger and with more of a bad purpose than Salei’s shove.

“I have all the respect in the world for [Modano],” Salei said Tuesday night. “It is just a bad accident. It’s the result [the fall into the boards] why I am being punished.” That’s what Salei said Saturday night too. Salei didn’t realize the seriousness of the trouble he would be in until the Stars’ Brett Hull charged Salei and began punching.

In the Ducks’ locker room afterward, Teemu Selanne gave an impassioned plea to all NHL players. Selanne said that with bigger, faster, better-conditioned, better-trained athletes on the ice, any hit in the back, no matter how innocuous, no matter how soft, was “scary,” and that every NHL player better consider how he plays the game.

If the NHL’s severe actions against the Ducks are to set a tone for the game, then great. If every push, shove, tap, hit to the back, no matter the outcome, no matter whether a skater doesn’t miss a step or slams into the boards, is treated with equal harshness, if the NHL’s intent is to make the game more international, more wide open and less physical, then great. Then these suspensions will be worthwhile.

Though you might think the NHL does want to clean up the on-ice act, if it had reacted as harshly against Dallas Coach Ken Hitchcock and Hull as against the Ducks, we might take them more seriously.

Conveniently, the Ducks open their home season at the Arrowhead Pond Friday against the Stars. Hitchcock threatened “a war,” and Hull made promises of retribution as well. When the coach declares war, that’s OK?

And when the Stars vow retribution, make threats of retaliation, perhaps the NHL should listen.

Just last spring, Dallas captain Derian Hatcher went airborne, smashed Phoenix’s best player, Jeremy Roenick, in the jaw and shattered that jaw in three places. This was two games before the regular season ended. Roenick missed the playoffs and Phoenix was eliminated in the first round. Hatcher was suspended for seven games. In the previous meeting between Phoenix and Dallas, Roenick had checked Modano. Modano needed some stitches though Modano didn’t miss any playing time. Afterward the Stars vowed revenge. Next time the Stars played Phoenix, crunch went Roenick’s jaw.

Another history lesson: Gary Suter received a four-game suspension for his cross-check to Duck star Paul Kariya’s jaw. Kariya missed the 1998 Olympics and the final 28 games of the season with post-concussion syndrome.

But, OK, let’s accept the combined 19 games of suspensions the Ducks received for Saturday’s activities if everybody else is treated the same, serious way, this season. And let’s watch very carefully what happens at the Pond Friday night. Pay close attention to the mouthy Hull. Let’s see if Hitchcock meant what he said about a war. Because if Hitchcock was serious, if Hitchcock gets his war, then the NHL is in trouble.

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com