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Report: Sens owner meets with NHL about Cooke-Karlsson investigation

cookekarlssoncap

Remember the forensic investigation Ottawa owner Eugene Melnyk undertook in the wake of Matt Cooke slicing Erik Karlsson’s Achilles?

Well, sounds like he’s ready to reveal his findings...

Interesting, on day of Torts hearing in NYC, OTT owner Eugene Melnyk, GM Bryan Murray, NHLPA exec director Don Fehr seen going into NHL HQ.

— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) January 20, 2014


It’s believed they’re there as part of Melnyk’s forensic investigation into Matt Cooke’s skate cut on Erik Karlsson last season. — Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) January 20, 2014

Melnyk maintained at time of incident that Cooke did it intentionally and vowed to prove it. NHL exonerated Cooke at that time.

— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) January 20, 2014


It was roughly six weeks after the incident -- Cooke hit Karlsson into the boards, slicing the Ottawa defenseman’s tendon, sidelining him for 31 games -- that details surfaced about Melnyk’s investigation.

“I’m going to prove whether it was intentional or not,” Melnyk said in a late-March interview on Toronto’s Fan 590. “You watch. It may be public. It may not be public, but it’s between me and the league.”

Cooke was exonerated by the league for the hit.

“I think it was intentional, but you have to be able to prove it and from all the television angles that we saw, you can’t see it,” Melnyk continued. “It was so fast. But the force of that skate, (it) had to go in through a sock, a sub sock, then (Karlsson’s) skin, muscle, sheath and then get to (Karlsson’s) tendon… either this guy is very good or very lucky, to be able to do that.”

Melnyk went on to add he had “forensic doctors” looking at the incident.

In an interesting twist, Cooke -- who was playing for Pittsburgh at the time of the incident -- apparently won’t be affected by this meeting and subsequent findings, according to Mike Russo of the Minnesota Star-Tribune. Russo reports the Wild, Cooke’s current team, won’t be affected by this either.

UPDATE: Bettman appeared on TSN 1200 Ottawa on Tuesday and said Fehr wasn’t part of the meeting, but was at the NHL office on unrelated business. The post has been changed to reflect that.