Raffi Torres will return to the NHL sooner than expected.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced on Monday that the Phoenix Coyotes forward has been suspended for 21 games for his late hit on Chicago's Marian Hossa during the Western Conference quarterfinal. That suspension is reduced from the 25 games that Torres originally received, a total that ensured that Torres would not play again during the Coyotes' Stanley Cup Playoff run. The Coyotes advanced to the Western Conference Finals before losing to the Los Angeles Kings, the eventual Stanley Cup winners.
"We hope and expect that the severity of this incident, and the League's response to it, will help prevent any similar incident from occurring in the future," Bettman said in a statement.
Based on the current NHL schedule - which, of course, would change if there were any kind of lockout or other work stoppage - Torres is now eligible to return on November 2, when the Coyotes face the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Place, as opposed to the Coyotes' game against the San Jose Sharks on November 13. His return will certainly be welcome, as it will be the third game in four nights for Phoenix, and Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett will undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to give one of his players a rest.
It's worth asking, however, if there's a greater significance to the NHL's decision to reduce Torres' suspension by four games. The obvious connection would be to the negotiations between the league and the NHL Players' Association on a new collective bargaining agreement. The players have expressed concerns about the fact that the commissioner rules on appealed suspensions, and a decision that gives four games (and the associated salary) back to Torres while reaffirming the severity of his hit on Hossa could be an attempt to demonstrate that he can be sensitive to player concerns while making judgments on decisions made by Brendan Shanahan and the Department of Player Safety.
It will be interesting to see how important Bettman's power to rule on appeals is as the negotiations between the owners and players go on.