A Thornton Ruling and a Clarkson Hearing

It's midnight on a Saturday and today, NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan will be in the news.

This is when he plans to announce his ruling on the Shawn Thornton incident. There's that, and then there's also a phone hearing he will have with Maple Leafs winger David Clarkson for his head shot on Blues forward Vladimir Sobotka.

Clarkson's hit occurred at 6:28 of the second period of the Blues' 6-3 victory on Thursday night. Clarkson was given a two-minute minor and Sobotka was able to remain in the game. Clarkson has already been penalized for 10 games this season for jumping off the bench in the preseason to fight the Sabres' John Scott, who went after Maple Leafs star Phil Kessel. Under this, it would make him a repeat offender and would cost him more than $64,000 a game.

For Thornton, Shanahan already had his in-person hearing with him on Friday over the Dec. 7 incident in which he pulled the Penguins' Brooks Orpik down to the ice and punched him, leaving him with a concussion.

For Thornton, I believe this suspension will be between six to eight games, possibly more. I don't entirely know if he's a repeat offender as defined by the CBA, but here's my small take on it. He punched him when he was down on the ice. That's basically taking advantage of a defenseless and possibly leaving him with a concussion. The NHL is known for taking hard action against acts like these, so I would expect between six to eight games. If there's more, and that's highly unlikely, then that wouldn't surprise me either. In a game that's trying to protect its players, you gotta give him as much games as possible.

Now let's move to the David Clarkson thing. He's already a repeat offender. If he's already gotten ten games, he could get more. I don't understand this repeat offender understanding. I think repeat offender should actually be about head shots and hits on other players, not coming off the bench to fight another guy. But that's the way the rules go, I guess. I would be surprised if he got more than 10 games. And this is a phone hearing. Now add that all up together and you could get at least 12 games out of this. I don't want this. But this is a head shot and he needs to sit for this. I would like it to be between seven and eight games, even if it is a phone hearing and that happens when it's five games or less. But I'm afraid it's going to be more than 10 games. Either way, Clarkson's already had a busy reputation this season with the Department of Player Safety and he's going to be sitting another couple of games thanks to this.