For weaker or um, weaker ... today's NHL

Are we seeing the re-birth of goon hockey? Guys like Matt Kassian, Colton Orr, Eric Godard and Steve McIntyre have been laoring in the minors, but soon they'll all have necessary roles on teams that are getting bounced around. The Bettman, Campbell, SHAMahan experiment has failed ... badly!

Well, thanks to the NHL's "choice" to not regulate dirty hockey or dirty hockey players (think the Boston Bruins, among others), many NHL teams have no choice but to re-employ enforcers to protect their respective teammates. Tonight, Kassian returns to the Wild because the NHL failed to discipline players who took cheap-shots that injured Jared Surgeon (5-9, 175), Pierre Marc Bouchard (5-10, 175).

We all know that enforcers are seldom allowed the opportunity to protect the guys on the team and the Wild are perfect examples of that. Heavyweights like Matt Johnson, Sylvain Blouin, Derek Boogaard, Chris Simon, Todd Fedoruk, Chris Simon and John Scott proved to be deterrents to nobody. Rarely were they ever able to "exact revenge" on the offending party because the on-ice officials wouldn't allow it.

Typically, these players were rendered useless by the fact that they were little more than linebackers on skates. The moment they stepped on the ice, they had more eyes on them than Rihanna in game of strip poker. If they were ever able to lay their hands on the scrawny necks of the equivalent of Matt Cooke or Ryan Kesler, they faced the scorn of the same league that allows the injustices to occur in the first place.

In the end, we the hockey fans, get what we want and the fearless leaders of today's NHL will continue to be the targets of nation-wide derision as they flail aimlessly and hopelessly to tomorrow's NHL.