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The explanation I got on the Rome hit wasn't that it was high, it was that the hit was made 2 seconds after Horton played the puck, and that fell outside the 1.5 second range for post-playing the puck contact. So really, the only thing that made Rome's hit illegal was that his reaction to Horton playing the puck was .5 seconds too late. Had the hit happened 1 second after he played the puck its probably not even a penalty.
What I was told and I believe it was a Bob McKenzie utterance. First the hit was considered legal as you mention it was the timing. TSN ran it frame by frame and McKenzie said it was 27 frames from the moment the puck left Horton stick to the first contact by Rome. I'm told ( By McKenzie ) that 27 frames = 0.9 second
If that wasn't bad enough, when Vigneault called that comment stupid, Julien's response is to call AV a hypocrite, tells him to check his own backyard, and points at Burrows putting his stick in Thornton's throat. Yeah, OK. Burrows did get his stick a bit high, but he didn't spear him, just responded in kind and that's where his stick was. There's a huge difference between intentionally low bridging a guy and having your stick be less than 100% controlled when you retaliate with a poke at a guy in a scrum. I wonder what Julien would have to say about stickwork if they played back Peverly's intentional hack on Bieksa last spring? Probably just part of the game right?
