Kyle McLaren wasn't trying to injure Richard Zednik when the Boston defenseman clotheslined the Montreal winger last week. Plus, McLaren has a spotless record with the NHL office. McLaren is, by most analyses, a hell of a guy. McLaren gets suspended.

	Richard Zednik was carried off the ice on a stretcher Thursday night.

Darcy Tucker wasn't trying to injure Michael Peca when the Toronto winger low-bridged the New York winger the other night. Tucker is a feisty little bugger who averages more than a penalty per game. Tucker is, by most analyses, a hell of a guy doing a largely unpleasant job. Tucker gets nothing. In the same game, Toronto's Gary Roberts checked Isles defenseman Kenny Jonsson from behind into the glass. Roberts drew a five-minute major penalty but never heard from the league office.

And herein lies the dilemma for the NHL -- reconciling these positions so that people don't think the place is being run by the mailroom.

In fact, the positions can't be reconciled. If McLaren wasn't trying to hurt Zednik, and Tucker and Roberts weren't trying to hurt Peca and Jonsson, respectively, why does one get it upside the ear and the other two don't? The only explanation we are given is that the NHL's dean of students, Colin Campbell, knows things the rest of us don't.

That's not good enough. Not even close.

The NHL's history in the we-need-larger-markets-more-TV-and-a-broader-audience era has been a spasmodic jerk between "We decry violence" and "Well, some violence is understandable." Depending, of course, on the mood of the day and the mood of the staff.

Normally, nobody worries about this inconsistency, because Campbell doesn't have to deal with many of these during the season. Thus, one incident dies down before the next one arises, and comparisons don't hold the public's attention.

But when the events happen one atop the next, people notice things like McLaren/Zednik, Tucker/Peca and Roberts/Jonsson, and can't figure out why some are one thing and some are another.

(Author's note: We have no rooting interest here in the disposition of any case, so send your complaints to your own files to read at your leisure).

And, people notice when it takes two days for Campbell to smoke McLaren, and they start looking for exotic conspiracy theories. Publicity on two successive news cycles, perhaps?

Now we're willing to allow that Campbell doesn't work that way, that his reputation is not that of a manipulator. But the NHL has always had a complex about its cult status, and how too many potential customers say they can't understand the game or the culture.

And of course, they laugh at the boys-will-be-boys view on semi-deliberate injury dispersal.

This is why Campbell's job is only half done when he metes out punishment or not punishment. He not only has to explain why Tucker's or Roberts' plays are different than McLaren's, but offer a framework of precedents for why it is so. As it is, it looks too capricious, too seat-of-the-pants, too "Because I said so, that's why."

That's not good enough. Not even close.

The Stanley Cup playoffs are, frankly, too precious an event to the sport to turn it into a Judge Hatchett coin-flip-o-rama. The game doesn't have to be dumbed down or defanged, but its keepers have to show a sense of explicable consistency for everything they do.

These cases show that they don't, and that they play inadequately to the audience they already have.

	Darcy Tucker took Mike Peca out of the play and the playoffs in Game 5.

The Tucker incident is particularly troubling here, because if anything, it looked more overtly dangerous even though it was aimed at Peca's knees rather than his skull. Now if McLaren hadn't been rung up for the Zednik hit, one could at least see some sense in letting Tucker walk without so much as a desk appearance ticket.

But we'd be willing to buy into the inconsistency if Campbell could have explained it in a more satisfactory way, based on some sort of league-wide and agreed-upon philosophy with a set of past cases that underscore that philosophy.

Which is more than Campbell can do on his own, unless he was named commissioner the other day without the P.R. department tipping anyone off.

But there's always another day, another game, another incident and another injury. There is always a chance for the league to coherently articulate what it wants from its players, and the punishments that come with failing to meet that standard.

Hope springs eternal. And in this case, eternal is about how long we might have to wait.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.