Last night’s game was pretty much all around bad for Columbus Blue Jackets fans, but without a doubt the worst part was Nick Foligno‘s freak-accident collision with a linesman that resulted in him being taken off the ice on a stretcher. In case you missed it, here’s the video:
As you can see, Foligno was being checked down the boards by former Jacket Jeff Carter when his head made contact with the linesman’s hip and he went down. Obviously, it was a freak accident that resulted in an injury, hopefully one that isn’t too severe. But who’s to blame? Is there any fault here at all, or was it really just an accident?
If anyone is to blame, it’s Jeff Carter. In the video it looks like he could have seen the official, pulled back, and let Foligno off the boards so as to avoid the collision entirely. Columbus fans weren’t shy in blaming Carter for the injury last night, and the CBJ Twitter universe exploded with anti-Carter tweets.
Of course, if there’s any player we love to hate, it’s Jeff Carter, and rightfully so. We all know how well his time here went, so it doesn’t seem unlikely that blaming him for Foligno’s injury could be taking things a little to far. Is it really plausible that he could have read the play and backed off in time to avoid the collision? It’s hard to tell.
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Take another look at that video, and decide for yourself. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never skated at NHL speed and hit someone like that before, so I have no idea if he could have stopped and didn’t, or if he was too far into the play to stop it. I’d like to say it was all Carter’s fault, and certainly that’s how I felt after the game last night. But, after having a day to re-watch the play and read what others have been saying, I’m not sure if he’s at fault or not.
Anyway, I realize that discussing whether we should hate Jeff Carter more after last night or not isn’t really very tangible, but it’s interesting to see where the blame lies. I’ve read a bunch of different opinions on this today, and now I want to know what you all think: do you blame Carter for Foligno’s injury, or was it just an accident that he couldn’t avoid? Vote in the poll and be sure to comment below to let us know what you think!