Head of NHL's Player Safety explains some recent suspensions and non-suspensions from his department

Whenever there's a suspension in the NHL, or an incident that looks like it may warrant one, debate rages between fans over how severe the punishment should be, or even whether one should be handed out at all. The main complaint from fans seems to be consistency or, more precisely, a lack of it when it comes to deciding who should be suspended and how long a term they should serve. With the NHL attempting to give fans some insight into how the Player Safety department works, it's head, George Parros, appeared on NHL now to talk about how decisions are made and how some recent decisions turned out the way they did.

"We like to think we're the most transparent department of its kind in any sport," said Parros at the beginning of his interview. "We pump out all the suspension videos, we try to produce those as clearly and precisely as we can to explain our decisions. But, often times, there's many decision that we don't make that our passionate fanbase has questions on and maybe we can explain a bit better."

He started with an incident between Detroit's Dylan Larkin and Tampa Bay's Mathieu Joseph. This was one that upset many fans as Larkin was the victim of a hit from behind, but ended up suspended after punching Joseph in the face following the hit. Parros explained that when making decisions on boarding plays, the department looks at several factors: the severity of the hit, whether the person getting boarded was injured, whether they turned at the last second, etc. In this case, he said the elements that would make this play suspendable on Joseph's part just weren't there. He added he doesn't love the hit and it's one that warranted a penalty by the referees during the game. However, DoPS felt Larkin did turn at the last minute, putting himself in a vulnerable position.

"The fact that Joseph doesn't go into the boards with him overly forceful, and almost tries to minimize a bit helps us keep it from a suspension," said Parros.

As for Larkin's reaction, Parros said there are over 100 minor boarding penalties in the NHL every year and if everyone were to react the way Larkin did, his department would be much busier. He added he's spoken to Larkin and he's certain he understands that.

Parros also talked about having to deal with two recent headbutting incidents, something he said he never thought would happen in the first week of a season. The first turned out not to be a headbutt at all, even though it looked like it at first. Calgary's Rasmus Andersson took exception to Edmonton's Kailer Yamamoto driving his goaltender in a recent battle of Alberta. Andersson took Yamamoto into the boards and punched him several times, while also appearing to land a headbutt. A better angle shows it was his glove that made contact with Yamamoto's face rather than his helmet. Andersson would end up with a fine for roughing. A couple of days later, Pavel Buchnevich of the St. Louis Blues would get two games for headbutting Arizona's Lawson Crouse. Parros called that one very clear cut, and he's not wrong. While there was really no damage done to Crouse as a result, it's still a stupid move and one that will always land a suspension when it's as clear as this one. Parros said he believed it was the first suspension for headbutting in the NHL since 2012.

You can watch Parros' full interview with clips of each play below: