Trevor Gillies probably never figured he’d be the focus of attention at all in his career. His latest incident that saw him deliver a dirty hit on Minnesota’s Cal Clutterbuck in his first game back after serving a nine game suspension moved him to the forefront of discussion across the league.
With yesterday’s 10 game suspension being dished out to Islanders forward Trevor Gillies, and with most everyone weighing in on whether or not they felt the NHL got this one right, Islanders GM Garth Snow had his say today.
This afternoon, Snow spoke with the media about his thoughts on the stiff punishment. If you’re expecting Snow to issue a “mea culpa” or to throw Gillies under the bus for his reckless play, you’ll be waiting a long time. NHL.com’s John Kreiser has the story from Long Island about how Snow sees things in a different light.“From the play, the way I saw it develop, it was a hit from behind on DiBenedetto by the Minnesota player,” Snow said prior to Saturday’s game against St. Louis, the first of 10 Gillies will miss due to the suspension. “Trevor comes over and tries to finish his check. First point of contact was shoulder-to-shoulder. It was not a hit from behind by any means.
“I think his left glove accidentally followed through and made contact to the head. But, by no means do I think he had the intention to hurt the Minnesota player. I think he was going in with good intentions to finish his check, and it’s unfortunate he did receive a 10-game suspension.
“I know Trevor as a person and I know there was no malicious intent when he was finishing the check.”
You can argue about his intent all day when it comes to this situation, the problem here, of course is that it’s both the recklessness of the play as well as Gillies’ standing in the eyes of the league. Last we saw of Gillies before his hit on Clutterbuck was the vision of him standing at the door to mock Pittsburgh’s Eric Tangradi after he landed a disgusting head shot on him. The lack of awareness by Gillies and by Snow in explaining all of this is foolish.
Snow stressing that Gillies does a lot of charity work, is beloved in the locker room, and how he’s a credit to the community with what he does off the ice is a great way for him to try and humanize the man. It’s not the man we’re concerned with here though, it’s the player and the player has shown now in his last two games that he’s reckless and dangerous. They’re not suspending Trevor Gillies from doing charity events, they’re suspending him from hockey and that’s the right move.
Chris Botta put things into perspective beautifully yesterday on Puck Daddy showing that the on-ice and off-ice person is almost always different and did so through the eyes of former Isles pariah Chris Simon. Until Gillies (and Snow) start to understand that, things will not change in their philosophy on Long Island. As we said here yesterday, Snow and the rest of the Islanders leadership have until March 26 to figure out whether or not Gillies understands his role and if Snow and company value their role as leaders of the team.