Kesler Avoids Discipline for Clipping Clutterbuck

From Greg Wyshynski:

As was predicted in our post early this morning, the league refuses to take the hit for what it is. There was no injury on the play, so it isn't "overly vicious." This leads to a question... is there a chart of levels of viciousness hanging in the war room in Toronto? One with happy faces to sad, like when they ask you how much pain you are in at the ER?

Kesler gets to skate against the Hawks, and the Safety Dance goes on. Nothing to see here, folks. Rest assured, they'll "remember down the line if Kesler does it again." That makes it all better.

Oh... and make the jump for a video of a hit that Shanahan deemed worthy of a suspension.

Here is that video:

At the time, Shanahan had this to say:

Let's use this as a checklist.

"Marchand skates toward Salo along the boards" - Kesler skates toward Clutterbuck along the boards.

"Rather than deliver a shoulder-to shoulder check, Marchand drops down dangerously low into Salo's knee area" - Rather than deliver a shoulder-to-shoulder check, Kesler drops down dongerously low into Clutterbuck's knee area.

"propelling Salo up and over and causing an injury." - propelling Clutterbuck up and over and causing... oops. No injury. And there you have it. If there would have been an injury, this would have been a suspension. Since there wasn't one, the act is forgiven.