Does Alain Vigneault Have A Beef With the NHL?

New York Rangers coach Alain Vigneault is going after the NHL after one of his players got knocked out of the game. The attacker: Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds.

On Saturday, Wayne Simmonds hit Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh on Saturday's game and McDonagh will be out for the game against the New Jersey Devils on Monday and Alain Vigneault is not in a pleasant mood about it.

McDonagh suffered a concussion from that hit. Simmonds received a match penalty and was ejected from the game. But he didn't go quietly, tossing his stick in the direction of the officials. They later rescinded the match penalty, which shouldn't have happened. Simmonds was allowed to play in Sunday's loss to the Capitals and therefore escaped further punishment from the NHL.

Alain Vigneault later responded to what happened, saying, "What I didn't expect was the reaction from the league. An All-Star player gets sucker-punched, goes down. In the rulebook, that's automatic. It's three games. Nothing happens. It's not even on the sheet after the game."

McDonagh has no timetable for his return and New York has four games over the next seven days, and they would like to have McDonagh as soon as possible. But this is more about the NHL's ineffectiveness at getting any call right. I talked about the Dennis Wideman punishment and the statement that came after it last week. He had been hit by an Oilers player, then tries to skate back, and runs into an official and gets 20 games for it, without even listening to an explanation, and now we have this, where the league doesn't punish Wayne Simmonds for doing something that should be punished.

Simmonds knew he was doing this and probably was grateful to escape and should not have. You can't have this guy going after the best players and then getting away for it. McDonagh didn't even retaliate, so Simmonds should've been out for Sunday's game. Alain Vigneault does have a beef, but it looks like the NHL is not going to listen to him either. The NHL tends to listen to himself and the video evidence. Although the officials tried to get this right, they were overruled by the powers above them, which I don't think is right.

You have to suspend him. Three games. Maybe four. But you have to get this guy sitting down for a couple. Alain Vigneault lost a guy because Simmonds wanted to fight somebody and didn't get it, and he kept going to try to convince him to fight. So right now, the NHL has gotten two things wrong in the past two weeks. They didn't listen to Wideman and they didn't listen to Vigneault. So the next time there's a big hit or something that results in fine or no fine: Will they listen to players or to the coach or just to themselves? It's becoming ridiculous.