Thanos Thanos:
Did Markus Naslund ever recover from the cheap shot Moore laid on him that set all that bullshit off in the first place? If I recall it correctly Naslund was never the same afterwards, thanks to the post-concussion syndrome Moore's hit left him with, and retired several years later because of it.
Poppycock!
The very next season Naslund got 79 points (compared to 84 the year of Bertuzzi's vicious attack on Moore, which BTW led the team in scoring. Naslund didn't retire from professional hockey until six years after Moore's hit (the last season he played in Sweden and not the NHL).
The reason for Naslund's scoring decline in later years was a combination of age (27 is the prime year for hockey players which he was well past) and the fact that the Sedin twins became Vancouver's dominant offensive weapons.
Thanos Thanos:
I have no love for Bertuzzi. He more than deserved the punishment the league laid on him at the time. But the way Moore's lawyers dragged it into court and milked the issue for over ten years is fucking ridiculous. I'm sure the time limit to file suit has expired, but if Moore can sue Bertuzzi for the sucker punch (and it wasn't even the punch or even the fall to the ice that did the most damage to him, it was the dog pile of players that landed on him when the other Avalance guys on the ice tackled Bertuzzi and they all fell together), could Naslund sue Moore for setting off the slow burn that eventually ended his career? How about Wendel Clark suing Claude Lemieux for ending his? Eric Lindros suing Scott Stevens for ending his? Cam Neely suing Ulf Samuelsson for ending his?
There's a massive difference between getting checked at centre ice and someone grabbing you from behind and punching you in the head, knocking you out cold. If anyone else did what Bertuzzi had done anywhere outside of a hockey rink, they would have gone to jail, period.
Ever hear the saying "Keep you head up" - that's why most of those other guys are finished. They ignored that very important piece of advice and paid for it.
Don't get me wrong, I think players who deliberately try to injure other players (like that SOB Craig Muni) should be exiled from the league like McSorley was, or at the very least, suspended until the injured player comes back.
The only reason Bertuzzi wasn't was because he could score as well as be a goon.
That's why the Bertuzzi incident was so bad - one guy at the tail end of his career (McSorley) was exiled while another who did something just as malicious got a relative slap on the wrist.
Sure, Bertuzzi missed 17 months of hockey, but he went on to earn millions more after the suspension ended while Moore sat on the sidelines and watched.
Thanos Thanos:
Where does this bullshit end? Bertuzzi was punished, even if some think it wasn't enough, according to a long-time legal standard that allows pro hockey to police their own business outside of both the criminal and civil courts. The Canucks should have been fined heavier and Marc Crawford in particular, who probably did more to egg on the situation in the Canucks locker room than anyone else, should have been suspended for at least a year. But Moore got his salary payout and insurance money on top of it for his disability, no different than happens to any other worker that gets injured on the job. Dragging this through the courts for a decade, to the enrichment of some goddamn lawyers only, was bloody ridiculous.
I don't care much for lawyers either, but the ones running the NHL are just as slimy.
You want to talk ridiculous - look at the scumbag tactics the NHL used to try to get Moore to drop his suit - like withholding disability payments, counter lawsuits and other high pressure tactics.
The only reason this was settled was because the NHL knew it was going to take a very black eye if this thing went to court and how they handled this sordid affair was made public.