Garnet Hathaway’s three game suspension for spitting shows the NHL has the wrong priorities

The reality is that the NHL just wants an easy win.

The Washington Capital’s Garnet Hathaway let his emotions get the best of him earlier this week, when, during the tail end of a brawl against the Anaheim Ducks, he spit in the face of an opposing player.

As the video shows, there’s no doubt a giant loogie came flying out of his mouth, and Hathaway admitted it was the wrong move. For his actions, he was given a match penalty, which equals an automatic suspension from the game and a hearing with the league.  In addition to the match penalty,  Hathaway also received an additional three game suspension and will forfeit $24,193.53 of his salary.

The NHL has long been criticized for doling out inconsistence punishments for on-ice misbehavior and Hathaway’s excessive three-game ban just adds to the list. The ban is all the more puzzling when taking Brad Marchand’s penchant for licking people into account. During the postseason last year, the Boston Bruins forward was a nuisance on the ice, trying to rile up opponents by licking their faces or trying to kiss them. The NHL didn’t get involved in trying to stop his spit-spreading behavior, aside from issuing a half-hearted warning.

While Hathaway and Marchand’s incident aren’t exactly the same, they are pretty similar, considering both violate hockey’s unwritten rules of conduct.

Hathaway’s suspension also looks egregious when compared to some of the other punishments (or lack there of) that the league has handed out for far more serious infractions.

Just this year, NHL Player Safety levied a two-game suspension against the Flames Milan Lucic for “roughing” the Blue Jackets Kole Sherwood. After slashing at Sherwood’s stick, Lucic punched Sherwood in the face with enough force to knock him onto the ice, head first.

Winnipeg’s Adam Lowry was also suspended for two games for boarding the Calgary Flames Oliver Kylington.

NHL Player Safety merited out a longer, three-game ban for the Blue Jackets Nick Foligno for elbowing Colorado Avalanche forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare in the jaw and knocking him out of the game.

Physicality in the sport is a given, and it’s the pact that players make when they step out on the ice, but all of the plays listed above have the capacity to be far more damaging than mere spitting. The NHL has also whiffed and when it doesn’t suspend for high hits, like this particular instance from the Capitals repeat offender Tom Wilson.

It’s clear that the subjective nature of NHL suspensions will never be perfect, but the excessive Hathaway ban doesn’t prove much, aside from the fact that the NHL is willing to come down hard on issues that don’t really matter that much.

The lengthiest suspension that the NHL has handed out for this season has been against former LA Kings defenseman Slava Voynov, who committed acts of domestic violence in 2014. Instead of banning him from the league, the NHL handed down a year long suspension and left it up to teams to decide whether or not they would sign him when the suspension lifts during the 21-22 season, when Voynov will be 31 years old. Effectively, the NHL punted on the decision to take a stand on a very important issue.

Voynov’s case is important not because spitting and domestic violence are at all related, but because it shows that the NHL is more than willing to pass the buck on difficult issues that are far more complicated to wrestle with. But spitting is low-hanging fruit for the NHL. By giving Hathaway, a first time offender, three games for spitting, the league gets to maintain that they care about respectability and decorum and manners. The reality is that they just want an easy win.

So congrats to the NHL, for successfully having removed the menace of spitting from the game. If they could please handle head hits, elbowing, and domestic assault next, that would also be great.

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