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Much has been said over the last few days regarding the situation involving Winnipeg Jets forward Cole Perfetti. Perfetti received a high stick from Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman on New Year's Eve. On Tuesday, the Jets forward said publicly that Hartman admitted the high stick was intentional retaliation to star Kirill Kaprizov getting injured. A Sportsnet panel debated the issue on Wednesday, and things got heated.
The main combatants in the debate were Jennifer Botterill and Jamal Mayers. Both are former players, with Botterill having represented the Canadian women's team and Mayers having played in the NHL. And both had vastly different views on the situation between Cole Perfetti's Jets and Kirill Kaprizov's Wild.
Should Kirill Kaprizov's Wild have retaliated against Jets' Cole Perfetti?
The bulk of the debate centered around the NHL's culture of retaliatory violence on the ice. Oftentimes, we see players from one team go after a star on an opposing team if their star had a shot taken at them. Mayers defended this practice during the Sportsnet panel.
“It's not about fighting. I think he (Ryan Hartman) sent the right message. I know the game has changed, but there is still an element of fear. There's still an element of sending a message,” Mayers said on Wednesday.
Another member of the panel defended the action but questioned the target. Cole Perfetti is a young player in the league and has a history of concussions. They mentioned star Jets players Nikolaj Ehlers, Josh Morrissey, and Mark Schiefele as preferable alternative targets.
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However, Botterill pushed back. She took umbrage with terms such as “revenge” and “sending a message” that were used. “You see Perfetti, a young great player in your league, and that's what you want present or succumb your young players to?” she said on the Sportsnet panel.
She went on to call the notion “archaic” later in the debate. Botterill also pointed out that this type of retaliatory violence could be a negative point on the league. And that there is a difference between physical play and dirty play.
The Wild placed Kirill Kaprizov on injured reserve on Wednesday. His timeline for return remains 1-2 weeks, according to The Athletic's Michael Russo. However, it's certainly a major blow for a Minnesota team trying to climb the standings.
The Winnipeg Jets are second in the Central Division. Meanwhile, the Wild find themselves down in seventh. That said, Minnesota is only four points out of a wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
Cole Perfetti and the Jets take on the Minnesota Wild again on February 20. Let's see if anything from the New Year's Eve game spills over then. In any event, this is certainly a game fans will want to keep an eye on.
