A wall of screens, 32 teams and 1 mission: How NHL Player Safety tracks trouble in real time

NEW YORK (AP) — The puck dropped just after 6 p.m. in Detroit, and the hum of activity had long been underway inside the NHL Player Safety room at league headquarters in Manhattan.

Someone was assigned to every game, and this was the busiest night of the season so far with all 32 teams in action. The room is a hockey lover's paradise with five giant television screens and more than a dozen other monitors showing every single goal, save, hit, penalty, injury and more.

The watchers who work there like to say they see everything. And they have an important job to do.

This is the first line of defense for head injuries, with a vast majority of the communication coming as calls to concussion spotters monitoring for the need to pull players off the ice for evaluation. It is also the beginning of the process to determine supplemental discipline, with an intricate process of watching, vetting, logging and reporting questionable plays to determine potential suspensions and fines long before George Parros hands them down and video explanations come out.

General managers, coaches and players are welcome to visit. The department was established in 2011.

“For the most part, when people come in, they do leave with knowing at least one thing: We definitely saw what you think that we should see,” said Damian Echevarrieta, the NHL's senior vice president of player safety. “Now, you might not always agree with our decisions, but the fact that we are on top of it and notice every single incident of every game, I think people really leave here knowing that.”

The Associated Press sat in Tuesday night to see how it all goes down.

Concussion spotters are at the forefront

With 16 games going as part of ESPN's “Frozen Frenzy,” there are concussion spotters seated at the front of the control room. It is the responsibility of, on this night, eight game-watchers to first alert a spotter of any possible contact to the head. Spotters then have a direct line to reach team medical staffs at games.

The first call comes at 6:33 p.m. to look at New Jersey's Jack Hughes high-sticking Detroit's Keegan Kolesar. It's quickly cleared of being a spotter concern, but Echevarrieta wants the video clipped just in case for later.

Just after 7 p.m., spotters are made aware of Florida's Lars Eller taking a puck to the face in the first period at Columbus and leaving the ice to get stitched up.

Later, it's Montreal's Noah Dobson, and there is chatter throughout the night as they keep an eye on him for any visible signs of a concussion. Game-watchers have access to Hawk-Eye camera angles from each end of the ice, along with a full-rink view from high above and the ability to isolate on a single player.

Another task is making sure all players required to wear helmets in warmups are doing so, along with mandatory neck guards for first-year players.

Anyone doing a rookie lap, like Anaheim's Roger McQueen on Tuesday night, gets a grace period — but when he was still helmetless several minutes later, Player Safety was ready to call the arena. McQueen had his helmet on two minutes later.

Disciplinary decisions start here

At 7:52 p.m., Panthers defenseman Uvis Balinskis was down on the ice and replays show Blue Jackets forward Mathieu Olivier spearing his opponent in the groin. Echevarrieta and Co. clock it before officials review the video and eject Olivier with a game misconduct for slashing.

Any time there is the potential for further punishment, a report catalogs what happened, if there was a penalty called, the players involved, any disciplinary history, the aggressor's next game and video clips of the incident. That report is sent to the entire department.

When Parros, a retired enforcer who took over player safety decisions in 2017, deems something worthy of a possible review, he emails Echevarrieta and the rest of the room for thoughts to be shared just with him. Parros asked by 8:17 p.m., less than a half-hour after the play unfolded.

On Wednesday, Olivier was fined $5,000, the maximum allowed under the collective bargaining agreement. A suspension was determined not to be warranted in part because he had no disciplinary history.

Seattle goaltender Philipp Grubauer shoving Philadelphia's Trevor Zegras raised attention around the room not long after. That was more to have video evidence of a goalie roughing penalty for future reference.

Player Safety process comes from Hockey Operations

Echevarrieta has been with the NHL since 1999, working in hockey operations in Toronto under Colin Campbell. That is still where the situation room does the same daily monitoring — but for goal reviews to determine if the puck is over the goal line and to assist with coach's challenges.

A decade and a half ago came the opportunity to copy many of the same procedures to use in Player Safety.

“It was already a time-tested system that we put into place, and it’s worked really well,” Echevarrieta said.

Repetition over the years has helped, he said, to where now even the most chaotic nights like Tuesday run smoothly. Interspersed in the job responsibilities is plenty of hockey talk — Matthew Tkachuk assisting on brother Brady's natural hat trick, and the few-seconds spoiler — “(Alexis) Lafrenière scored again!”

At multiple points, 10 games were going on at the same time, with Echevarrieta switching the sound to the most important broadcast at the moment and overseeing action that included 136 penalties, 110 goals and five fights — including the second of the young season for Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon. Overheard was the amazed sentiment, "“Nate fought again?”

And he wants anyone working in hockey to see how the sausage is made, a five-minute walk from where the Rangers play their home games at Madison Square Garden.

“MSG’s right down the street,” Echevarrieta said. “If you’re in town, especially if you have a day off in between an Islanders and a Rangers game, the door’s always open.”

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