When is a hit not a hit?

So yeah, the Rangers beat Columbus and Pittsburgh (scoring with eight seconds left in the game to tie it, no less), but I'm a little irritated right now.

And it's all the Islanders' fault.

No, it's not Rick DiPietro. He's just sad and pathetic and continually injured and not worth mentioning and likely not playing tonight. Dammit, too late to not mention it now.

I'm talking about Doug Weight's hit on Brandon Sutter Saturday night and the idiotic outrage it's caused.

Sutter comes through the neutral zone and puts his head down and crouches as he skates. Weight hits him clean and hard.

If Sutter is skating upright this isn't an issue.

Eric Lindros did this continually, and it's one of the reasons Scott Stevens (among others) used him as a throw pillow throughout the latter stages of his career.

You skate with your head down, or crouched over, and if somebody hits you, a shoulder to chest hit becomes....well....shoulder to skull.

Some of the thirty-seven Hurricanes fans are screeching for hits like this to be outlawed. That's probably because they're still new to hockey.

This is a contact sport. People get hit. If people skate with their head down, when they get hit, it's worse.

This is not a difficult concept to understand. These aren't Gordie Howe or Mark Messier elbows to the side of the jaw (hi Jamie Macoun!). We're talking open ice hits, which some people are now clammoring to outlaw, to give us a great, hit-free brand of hockey.

Maybe the next uniform changes the NHL tries out can be something like this.

Because if we're going to cry about banning open ice hits, why not also stop....oh....leaving your feet when you throw an open ice hit?

Wait a minute....that wasn't Brandon Sutter in that video, was it?