News und Ankündigungen » ultitude of issues the NFL has to consider

BOSTON -- Chad Johnson made a flurry of late saves to finish off the Boston Bruins.The Calgary goaltender won for the fifth time six starts, making 35 saves to lead the Flames to a 2-1 victory over the Bruins on Friday night.I just think hes been fantastic, Flames coach Glen Gulutzan said. Hes giving us great goaltending and then our guys are limiting those second chances. Its a good combination right now.Johnson stopped all 34 shots he faced Wednesday in a 2-0 victory at Columbus. It looked like a slow night Friday when Boston managed just five shots in the first period, but Johnson was busy the rest of the way and added to the Bruins frustrations as they lost their third straight.The guys are just doing a good job and Im getting results, Johnson said.Johnson stopped 11 shots in the second period and 19 more in the third. David Pastrnak was the only player to beat him Friday, knocking in a rebound during a scrum in front 5:55 into the third to tie it at 1l. The tie barely lasted a minute before Alex Chiasson put Calgary back up with a goal at 7:05 of the period.Sam Bennett had a goal and an assist to help Calgary win for the third time in four games. Boston has lost three straight and four of five.Anton Khudobin, recalled Friday from Providence of the AHL after a brief conditioning assignment, fell to 0-3 this season despite stopping 27 shots.Im moving pretty well and I feel the puck, Khudobin said. I felt pretty good and just the only thing that bothers me is I have three losses. I want the magic W.Khudobin needed to be sharp early as Calgary outshot Boston 13-5 in the first period and took a 1-0 lead on Bennetts goal at 8:36. Bennett skated through a pair of Boston players outside the blue line and got in alone on Khudobin, beating him with a wrist shot.Bennett set up winner with a backhand pass from behind the net right to Chiasson, who easily beat Khudobin as he scrambled to get back across.It was the only goal of the game until Pastrnak scored 5:55 into the third. John-Michael Liles and Tim Schaller assisted on the goal, Bostons first since Pastrnak scored with 11 seconds left in the first period Thursday night in a 3-1 loss at Ottawa.The Bruins had an apparent goal disallowed 3:01 into the second after Patrice Bergeron intercepted a clearing attempt by Johnson and shot it in from the right corner. Johnson was scrambling to get up off the ice after being knocked down by Mark Giordano and the Flames challenged, getting the goal overturned after a video review showed Bostons Brad Marchand interfered by knocking Giordano into his own goaltender.Just because your goaltender is out of the net and he happens to be in the way, I dont think that should have been called back, Boston coach Claude Julien said. We never know anymore what they think so we just have to sit back and accept what they decide. So, its a frustrating thing because its never the same thing twice.Game notesBoston played its second straight game without D Zdeno Chara, who left Tuesday nights loss to St. Louis early in the second period with an undisclosed lower-body injury. ... The Bruins sent G Zane McIntyre to Atlanta of the ECHL. ... Calgary LW Johnny Goudreau missed his sixth straight game with a broken finger. ... Johnson hadnt allowed a goal since Anthony Mantha scored for Detroit at 7:59 of the third period Sunday.UP NEXTFlames: At Philadelphia on Sunday night in the fifth of six games on the road.Bruins: Host Tampa Bay on Sunday.Yeezy Boost 350 Costo . With his new coach and six-time Grand Slam singles champion Boris Becker watching him during an official match for the first time, Djokovic appeared tentative early against the Slovakian player, who often appeared content to keep the ball in play. Scarpe NMD_XR1 . Louis. To which I would say two things: 1. Where there is smoke, there is or perhaps has been a little fire. Or, in other words, the two teams would appear to have at least spoken. And spoken is defined as one calling the other to inquire, no more, no less. http://www.scarpeyeezyitalia.it/adidas-hu-minions.html . Rob Manfred, baseballs chief operating officer, testified last week during the grievance filed by the players union to overturn Rodriguezs 211-game suspension. A person familiar with the hearing, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Saturday that Manfred testified the sport wasnt concerned whether Bosch distributed performance-enhancing drugs to minors because MLBs interest was his relationship with players under investigation. Adidas NMD R1 Bianche . "I wrote 36 on my sheet at the beginning of the game," the Cincinnati coach said, referring the yard line the ball would need to be snapped from. Adidas NMD R1 Nere .ca! Hi Kerry, Its another day and here we are looking at another dubious hit to the head. In this case Blue Jackets forward Brandon Dubinsky elbowed Saku Koivu in the head about a second after he dished off the puck to a teammate, knocking him unconscious.Last Sunday, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was ejected for throwing a towel at a referee.A week before that, Dolphins receiver Jarvis Landry took a running start at a defender who couldnt see him, slammed his shoulder into the players neck and sent him to the hospital. Landry played on after a 15-yard penalty and later received a $24,000 fine.These two snapshots -- polar opposites in both the players actions and the NFLs response -- underscore one of the leagues most difficult issues. Faced with an ever-growing concussion crisis, it talks tough about curbing illegal hits, especially those above the shoulders. Yet it uses its most-stringent penalty for those sorts of infractions -- the suspension -- very infrequently compared to the number of relatively inconsequential fines it hands out.What do you do when you want to punish somebody? You take something away, Jaguars tight end Marcedes Lewis said. The money, yeah, cool, but depending on who you are, youre good as far as the money goes anyway because you know its going to keep coming. When you take somebody out of the game, I think thats harsher.Its not to say the league is shy about ejecting and suspending players. Since the start of 2016 through Week 7, 47 have been suspended a total of 219 games and docked more than $18 million, according to the website spotrac.com.But of those suspensions, the majority were for drug use or legal- and violence-related issues off the field. A four-game ban went to Tom Brady for Deflategate. And spotrac.com lists only one illegal-hit suspension -- for three games -- which went to Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict after his vicious hit to Steelers receiver Antonio Browns head in last seasons melee of a playoff game.Meanwhile, spotrac.com lists 55 fines handed out in 2016 for violations including impermissible use of the helmet, roughing the passer, and blindside blocks the likes of which Landry delivered to unsuspecting Aaron Williams of the Bills. Williams crumpled to the ground and had to be transported to the hospital. Those infractions resulted in the single suspension (Burfict) and an average fine of $16,500 in a league with an average annual salary of $1.9 million. Thats an average of 0.8 percent of a players salary.Maybe we need to look at our rules a little better, Bills coach Rex Ryan said after the hit on Williams. Maybe, having a guy who targets and deliberately does something like that, the right thing to do is to eject the player from the game and maybe part of another game.That is the rule in college football, which also can use replay to pass final judgment on the legality of a hit.After the hit on Williams, for which Landry expressed remorse, NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino told NFL Total Access it wouldve been a difficult call to eject Landry because its still a football play, and its tough to read intent there. He conceded we have few automatic ejections in the game today.The NFL did not make Blandino available to The Associated Press for this story. Instead it referenced a portion of the league rulebook that has been rewritten over the past few years to reflect its emphasis on curbing helmet-first, above-the-shoulders and other illegal hits that used to be celebrated but are now viewed in a different light.Ten years ago, when I came into the league ... the sky was the limit when it came to hits, said two-time Pro Bowl defensive back Michaeel Griffin of the Panthers.dddddddddddd You lived for hits like that.Griffin served a one-game suspension as a repeat offender of hits to the head while with the Titans in 2013, the first season of the newly toughened hitting rules. When asked this week to reflect on the suspension, the first words out of Griffins mouth were: That cost me too much money. That cost me $205,000.But he said the suspension helped change his outlook, in part because if you cant play within the (rules), theyll find somebody else to do it.The increased emphasis on technique and safety has undoubtedly played into the decline in fines for hits on defenseless players, which is one subset of the hits the AP reviewed as part of the spotrac.com numbers. The NFL says there were 40 such fines in 2012, and only 10 in 2015. Yet, the leagues ability to police the violence this season came under scrutiny as early as Game 1, when MVP Cam Newton received four hits to the head in the season opener against the Broncos, none of which resulted in penalty yardage.Darian Stewart delivered one of those hits, then one the next week to Andrew Luck. Hes been fined a total of $27,000 for the hits -- a tad more than 1 percent of his 2016 base salary.No suspensions.Newton has complained to the NFL, going all the way to Commissioner Roger Goodell to discuss. This week, Newtons coach, Ron Rivera, echoed Ryan, saying it might be time to crack down harder.Steelers defensive end Cam Heyward, the teams union representative, says the players would appreciate more clarity.Theres so many gray lines. Everybody is always waiting for someone, or what Goodell is going to say, Heyward said. If you have a set rule and a set amount and how its going to be addressed, I think youll see more clarity and youre not going to have to deal with those (questionable hits).The NFL has resorted to a more-direct approach before.In 2010, after a rash of helmet-to-helmet hits, the league made a midseason adjustment and put the possibility of suspension front and center in an emergency effort to halt the violence. Predictably, defensive players complained -- then, after a week that included $175,000 in fines, nobody was suspended.Since then, a total of 10 players have been suspended for illegal hits and other over-the-top physical play on the field, according to spotrac.com. Four of those suspensions, including Griffins, came in 2013. Another four have come over the past three seasons.One observer believes player safety is only one of a multitude of issues the NFL has to consider when it decides which penalties to levy.As much as the league wants and needs to get rid of dirty plays and players, they dont want to take actions that compromise, or even appear to compromise, the actual contests themselves, said Doug Hartmann , a sociology professor at University of Minnesota, who teaches a course on sports in society. Fines and such, in other words, have much less impact on actual games and outcomes than suspensions or expulsions.---This story has been corrected to fix the name of the website, spotrac.com.---AP Sports Writers Steve Reed in Charlotte, Will Graves in Pittsburgh and Mark Long in Jacksonville contributed to this report.---For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFL ' ' '