A lot of commenters in last night's thread seem to be labouring under a mistaken impression. Staples' comment seems like a good jumping off point:

Matt, you seem a little bit blase about the Regehr hit. It clearly went over a line, and I hope if an Oiler did that to a Flame, I would admit the same.

To me, the only question is how long should Regehr's suspension be?

I am a bit blase about it, but not because I love that stuff (OLD TIME HOCKEY!), or because I think Regehr is a good Christian boy who would never hit dirty.

The NHL has five requirements for stiff punishment on a blow to a player's head.

That characterization is incorrect. The NHL has, and I paraphrase only slightly, "five factors identified as being relevant to whether a player should be subject to supplemental discipline when a hit to an opponent's head is involved". I summarized them after the last BoA:

1. When a player targets an opponent's head.
2. When a player launches himself by leaving his feet to hit a player in the head area.
3. When the hit to the head is delivered to an unsuspecting opponent.
4. The timing/lateness of the hit.
5. When the player is a repeat offender

"[...] When any or all of these factors combine to cause an injury to an opponent, it was agreed that a player would be subject to supplemental discipline in the form of a game suspension."

Staples then, in his comment, goes through these five factors in relation to Regehr's hit on Hemsky, and I have little quarrel with his assessment of this particular one. He has made a couple of mistakes, though, and I should know -- I've made the same ones. The first is looking at the criteria above and taking them literally (seriously). After Torres knocked out Moss, I conceded/stipulated that the injury, and hitting him in the head at all, were accidental.

In other words, a hit to an opponent's head was involved, #3 was the only one that qualified, and the opponent was injured. So the supplemental discipline would be a suspension, right? According to Colin Campbell's own words? No. I didn't consider the other factors.

And there are many other factors, as we have seen with other incidents.

6. Was a penalty assessed on the play?
7. Could the injury have been less severe if the victim had positioned his body differently?
7A. Or had his head up?
8. How malicious are we talking here?

Not sure if everyone saw Patrice Bergeron on Thursday, but he still can't walk 200 feet without getting dizzy. Randy Jones, on Thursday, played 17:44 in a 4-1 loss to New Jersey, his 3rd game back from suspension. Hitting from behind is against the rules because it can cause serious injury. Jones hit Bergeron from behind, and it caused serious injury. But because fucking up Bergeron for months, and possibly for life, didn't seem very malicious -- even though it happened via an act which is illegal precisely because of the awful consequences which we saw -- then it's a 2-gamer. Back to Staples:

But if the NHL is serious about protecting the Hemskys of the world -- the skill players who make this league worth watching -- and if it is serious about despicable blows to the head, Regehr will get a ten game suspension.

Dear Mr. Staples,

They're not.

Regards,

Matt Fenwick

[Addendum: Staples has his take up on his own site, which by the way I added to the sidebar yesterday because I'm enjoying it so far, and am impressed with his engagement with other blogs.

Also, my liveblog comment about "that hit on Hemsky by Regehr was pretty late" referred to the first one. Two different hits. Perils of liveblogging.]