Dissecting Trouba’s elbow on Rodrigues: did the NHL make the right call?

Frank Seravalli was joined by Colby Cohen to discuss Jacob Trouba’s hit on Evan Rodrigues on the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live. Trouba was assessed a minor penalty on the play and today was fined $5,000 for the hit.

Frank Seravalli: I wanted to ask you about the Jacob Trouba hit. Was it the right call or the wrong call? Should it have been a major and maybe a suspension?

Colby Cohen: No, I think they got it right. I didn’t like the way it looked in real time and with different angles I do not believe his elbow had square contact with the principle point to the head. Evan Rodrigues sold this a little bit in my opinion. I think he felt where it was and players are definitely conditioned to do that at this point. I know it looks bad when you slow it down and look at Trouba’s elbow but I will remind people that the game is not played in slow motion.

On any hit, you can slow it down frame-by-frame and make it look like a guy’s elbow is up or his shoulder was to the face or whatever it may be. I think the officials absolutely made the right call here with only a two minute penalty.

Frank Seravalli: I agree with you and I would say that you can tell that Trouba is trying to catch him, meaning he knows he’s beat and he’s trying to get an arm out and a lot of hits do actually begin with the arm out. I think there was definitely a heavy amount of embellishment from Rodrigues that probably doesn’t help. And in the end I think this was warranting certainly a minor penalty but I don’t see it as anything more than that.

I understand the push to want to crucify Trouba, he’s a guy who’s always squarely on the line.

You can watch the rest of the episode here: