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Former NHLer on Keith elbow: “Daniel Sedin will think twice about hitting a guy in the head”

Daniel Sedin

Former NHL defenseman and current CSN Chicago analyst Steve Konroyd is the latest to weigh in on the Duncan Keith-Daniel Sedin incident from Chicago’s 2-1 OT win on Thursday.

Konroyd, 51, played in 895 games with six different teams and was a teammate of some of the most feared enforcers of his era: Bob Probert, Dave Manson, Wayne Van Dorp and Mike Peluso, to name a few.

As such, he’s uniquely qualified to speak about NHLers policing themselves -- something he says happened when Keith exacted revenge on Sedin for an earlier hit the referees missed.

Six minutes prior to elbowing Daniel Sedin in the jaw, Duncan Keith was blindsided with a shoulder to the jaw by the same man he later targeted. This shoulder to the face didn’t get noticed by the officials on the ice -- heck it didn’t get noticed by me who was watching closely and adding color commentary to Pat Foley’s call.

But Duncan Keith sure noticed, and he decided to call a penalty. He saved number 22’s number in the memory vault and the next opportunity he had (roughly six minutes later) exacted his revenge.

I don’t like calling this “prison rules” or “law of the jungle” but what it demonstrates in no uncertain terms is if you slap my face and nobody punishes you, get ready to have yours slapped back.

Since I’m on a roll, let me take the jungle analogy one step further. A monkey walks up to a lion when no one is looking and pulls his tail. Guess what? The monkey just pulled his last tail. That’s why, to some extent, players have to police themselves because the referees can’t be watching everyone and everything over an entire ice surface.

The “policing” didn’t end there, either, as the Canucks spent a good majority of the second period going after Keith. Alex Burrows, Kevin Bieksa and Zack Kassian combined for 30 penalty minutes, yet there was a catch -- none of the penalties were for fighting.

Historically speaking, players have policed the game with fighting. So why was there none on Thursday night?