FanHouse JohnZeiler

Welcome to another exciting edition of the NHL Wheel of Discipline! Our effort to chronicle the stupidity of the NHL's supplementary discipline system continues. Just remember, Sean Avery got six games for a sex joke. Instead of serving as a baseline, it seems to be a forgotten fact at NHL headquarters.

There's no denying the positive effect a hard, clean check can have on a hockey team. Energizes the bench, and if you're at home, it also energizes the fans. It can be a huge momentum swing.

The case could be made that this punishment wasn't severe enough, but at least there was one.

The NHL Monday announced a three-game suspension for Kings forward John Zeiler. You may remember Zeiler's brutal shot on Colorado defenseman Adam Foote Saturday night in Los Angeles. He will not be eligible to play again until December 1, and he'll forfeit nearly $9,000 in salary.

The NHL Wheel of Discipline probably could have come up with a higher number, but three games is three more games than it could have been.

Meanwhile, we still don't know how badly Foote was injured. Adrian Dater of the Denver Post reports Foote is due for more tests on back and neck issues, and there is a chance he also suffered a concussion on the hit. He's definitely out for Monday's game at Anaheim.

I'm not a fan of basing punishments for illegal hits on how long a player is going to miss with injury. I'd prefer that a system be set up to hand out punishments that don't seem to come out of thin air.

Zeiler deserves a longer suspension for a stupid, dirty, brutal hit. The message needs to be sent that this stuff isn't going to be tolerated, and making a guy miss 3.7 percent of his team's season and taking $9,000 out of his wallet doesn't get the job done.

With any luck, Foote is back in the Avalanche lineup before Zeiler is allowed to return.

It's been a couple weeks since we rolled out the NHL Wheel of Discipline, so I guess it was due for a return.

Our subject this time around is John Zeiler of the Los Angeles Kings. During Saturday's game against Colorado, Zeiler attempted to decapitate veteran Avs defenseman Adam Foote, sending him head-first into the boards while the two were chasing a loose puck in the Colorado zone.

While the hit set off a brief but rather intense melee between the two teams, and it also caused Foote to miss the rest of the game (by the way, we still don't know how long Foote could be out.), that's not the point here.

We have reached the stage where the NHL needs to do something. While the hit by Doug Weight on Brandon Sutter may have been clean (according to the letter of the law, so to speak), this was most certainly not. Foote was facing the boards the whole way, and Zeiler followed him, hit him hard from behind, and drove him into the boards.

Video and discussion of a possible suspension after the jump.