NEW YORK — Leading the NHL’s Department of Player Safety can be a thankless vocation.

You take punches from every direction.

You deal with angry calls from general managers, especially when one of your suspension decisions stands in the way of history and perhaps an eventual NHL-record “Ironman” streak. You fend off the NHL’s players’ association, tasked with defending a perpetrator who inflicted harm on another union member. You answer to commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly, responsible for 1,271 NHL games being played fairly and safely. And you are critiqued daily in print and on the air waves, and on Twitter by thousands of barb-hurling hockey fanatics who customarily view discipline decisions through the lens of their favorite team.

“I’ve isolated myself from the social media world to this point, and I find it best to let the big stories come to me,” first-year department head George Parros, laughing, said last month when The Athletic was granted access to shadow a nine-game night inside the Department of Player Safety’s war room on the 12th floor of NHL headquarters. “You don’t get much positive reinforcement from anybody, so you’re better off avoiding it.”

The good thing is Parros has thick skin — and scarred and callused, for that matter, thanks to years of absorbing and throwing punches.

For a decade, the player with the league’s most famous mustache and an Ivy League education patrolled NHL rinks as an enforcer.

While amassing 1,092 penalty minutes, Parros fought 158 times — or 140 times more than the 18 career goals he scored — and that doesn’t include his nearly dozen preseason or postseason fights, nor nearly 50 minor-league fights.

Yet, despite playing the game tough and at times mean, Parros, who played four years at Princeton, was captain his senior year and got a degree in economics, was never once called to the carpet by the league disciplinarians before him — Colin Campbell, Brendan Shanahan and Stephane Quintal — or levied a single fine or suspension.

“I made sure to mention that a few times during the interview process,” quipped Parros, who took pride in playing hard yet honest. “I played the game as physically as anybody, but I didn’t push the envelope too much, I suppose, and didn’t end up having to talk to Colie or Shanny or Q. The way I played does set me up for this job in that regard. I walk into these decisions holding everyone to the same standard.”

That’s something Andrew Cogliano discovered in January.

Coincidentally one day after signing a three-year extension with the Anaheim Ducks, Cogliano, in his 830th consecutive game since the start of his career with the Edmonton Oilers in 2007, finished a high, forceful check into the face of Los Angeles Kings forward Adrian Kempe well after Kempe had passed the puck to teammate Tanner Pearson.

The puck was distributed when Kempe was inside the center-ice faceoff circle. The check was rendered after Kempe was well inside the offensive zone. Substantial head contact was made.

Cogliano checked every box for further discipline beyond the two-minute minor for interference he received during the game.

Yet, publicly, many wondered whether Parros and his department would — or should — make an exception and not suspend Cogliano, who had played hockey incident-free for years and was pursuing Doug Jarvis’ NHL record of 964 consecutive games played.

Parros had already made difficult decisions during his rookie year as the head of the department.

In November, he suspended Philadelphia’s Radko Gudas 10 games for slashing Winnipeg’s Mathieu Perreault across the back of the neck. A few weeks before the Cogliano incident, he suspended Arizona’s Zac Rinaldo six games for sucker-punching Colorado’s Samuel Girard.

Gudas and Rinaldo had histories of dirty play and pugilism, though. The Cogliano deliberation provided a whole other stress because of the player’s pursuit of history and the fact Parros played six seasons with the Ducks and was a former teammate of Cogliano.

Cogliano, who hadn’t missed a game since his junior days in 2004, was suspended two games.

“The last thing I wanted to do was interrupt his Ironman streak and place in history, but it’s a suspension that stacked up very consistently with any other interference suspension with contact to the head,” Parros, 38, said. “There was significant head contact, it was late. And if you’re a player with a gleaming history like Cogliano, if you still commit something that was worthy of supplemental discipline, it’s not really going to get you off the hook.

“The people that would have liked us to give Cogliano a break are the same people that give us flak for not being consistent. It would have been very inconsistent had we not suspended him.

“It was very difficult personally for me, for obvious reasons. It was really tough. But the incident stands on its own and we had to do what we did. My job is to protect the past and the future of this department, and if I didn’t suspend him, I might as well throw out the rulebook.”

Walk into the Department of Player Safety, and it’s sensory overload even more so than the Situation Room at the NHL’s Toronto headquarters, the place where good goals and no-goals are determined.

In this New York room, there’s a wall of 18 high-definition televisions in front of two long rows of work stations that feature multiple TV screens and computers for managers to log every significant event that occurs in every single game on every single night.

Supervisors sit in the row above overseeing it all.

Among the managers are spotters responsible for pulling players off the ice across the league if they recognize symptoms of a possible concussion.

Parros, a father of a twin boy and girl, spends a couple nights a week in the room and almost every day in his office with a view of Radio City Music Hall down the block.

Typically, Damian Echevarrieta, the group vice president of player safety and hockey operations, runs the operation with Patrick Burke, the senior director of player safety, acting as the No. 2.

In 1999, when Echevarrieta helped start the department from scratch, general managers first would have to send VHS tapes to the league via snail-mail in hopes of getting another team’s player suspended. The league ultimately evolved to a small room with TVs hooked to a satellite dish positioned in a corner conference room on the 46th floor of the league’s old Manhattan office building.

One night, the league lost the signal to every game. Echevarrieta panicked, sprinted upstairs and found that a cleaning lady knocked out the dish while dusting the blinds.

Burke has been identifying suspensions since before he hit high school.

When Brian Burke, the current Calgary Flames’ president who used to manage the Hartford Whalers, Vancouver Canucks, Anaheim Ducks and Toronto Maple Leafs, ran the NHL’s disciplinarian department before there was a video room, GMs would FedEx tapes to Burke’s house in Hartford if an incident occurred that didn’t get serious media hype or was reported by the refs.

Patrick Burke, Burke’s son who would have been 11 or 12 at the time, would often sign for the tapes, then watch them himself before his dad got home.

He’d tell his dad if he thought there should be a suspension, and the man lovingly known as “Burkie” would tell his boy, “Pipe down, you’re nine.”

Well, one night when his dad was working late or out of town, Burkie called home to wish young Patrick a good night’s sleep. Patrick told his pops he was watching the Islanders game on TV and thought one of the Islanders players should be suspended.

“So mostly to humor me, he called the other team and asked them to send the tape over so he could review it,” Patrick Burke said. “The tape arrived and he was like, 'Oh shit.' He went through the process and issued a suspension. He does the hearing and (Isles GM) Mike Milbury complains, 'I can’t believe the opposing GM sent this play in. How whiny is he? This isn’t the type of thing you send to the league.' My dad realizes he can’t let the opposing GM take the heat for it, so he says, ‘Actually, to be honest, he didn’t send it in. I requested it. My son was watching the game and saw the play and told me I should look at it.’”

As the story goes, Milbury snapped and screamed at Burke, “My fucking player is getting suspended because your dumbass kid is watching games?”

These days, the Department of Player Safety has reached 21st Century standards.

“Tapes” aren’t sent in anymore. Every single second of every game is monitored.

At their workstation, every manager has two TV screens, a laptop and is assigned one game. On one TV screen is the real-time action in order to bypass any TV delay, using the league’s Hawk-eye system. On the other TV screen is one of the team’s telecasts in order to have access to all replays.

They track any notable event, not just borderline or illegal hits that may need to be reviewed further for discipline.

They log hits, controversial plays, injuries, every penalty and basically any significant moment.

“Sometimes as we get closer to GM’s meetings or Board of Governors meetings, if we’re talking about potential rule changes, if we start seeing particular trends, we’ll instruct them to keep an eye out for that type of thing,” said Patrick Burke, a former Flyers scout who has been in the mix for a handful of NHL assistant GM jobs and, like his father, may someday return to working for a team. “Let’s say we see an increase in low hits. We may need examples of suspension-level low hits, things that are not a penalty, that are minor penalties, that are major penalties. We need all relevant information, so in here, we’re not only looking at suspendable plays.”

At the end of each game, there could be between 30-60 events for that game that are logged and color coded in a database.

This way, the next day, if a GM calls Parros upset about an incident in a game, he should be able to easily call up the game report and know exactly what happened. Or, if the league wants to look at examples of late hits or elbows or Rule 48 illegal head hits, they will have infinite instances.

At the end of every game, the league receives a melt feed from each team’s broadcast. That comes in handy if for some reason the league finds an incident that could require discipline but doesn’t feel it has enough replay angles that might show if a play is suspendable or finable.

“Most our broadcast partners do an excellent job and almost always show the replays that we need to make a good decision,” Burke said. “Only occasionally do we wish we had a better angle.”

As Burke watches from the top row of the dark room, managers occasionally call out incidents, either for Burke to review or for the concussion spotters to examine.

Devils rookie Nico Hischier taking a puck off the helmet required a secondary look on this particular evening.

Just 34 seconds into the Washington Capitals-Tampa Bay Lightning game, Brett Connolly is called for interference on Dan Girardi. There’s some potential head contact, so a manager yells over for Burke to take a look.

Burke initially doesn’t feel it’s suspendable, but it’s close enough that he instructs the manager to clip it and email it within minutes to a distribution list that includes Parros, Echevarrieta, Quintal — who no longer runs the department but is assisting Parros’ transition — and retired NHLer Ray Whitney.

“Is it chest, chin, head? It’s kind of on the edge where not everybody in the whole room is immediately going, 'Yeah, that’s a suspension,' but it’s close enough where the group should see it,” Burke said. “Maybe it turns out to be an example where we show a high hit that isn’t illegal. Maybe upon review we determine the head is the main point of contact. Maybe upon review we determine head contact wasn’t avoidable.

“The job right now supervising isn’t to make a call right away. It’s to decide whether it’s worthy of a group review.”

“This job is not without its challenges, but we run it pretty smooth,” says Parros, who racked up 158 fights in his NHL career but was never suspended for one of them. (Credit: Michael Russo)

Over the course of a night’s worth of games, sometimes there are only a handful of incidents clipped, sometimes it’s six or seven. Over the course of a season, the group usually receives over 650-750 emails to review.

In the email are the relevant video clips and bullet points of what happened: Was there an injury, does the offending player have a history, and when does his team play next? For instance, in February, the group needed to act quick to suspend New Jersey’s Miles Wood because he had a game the very next day after a boarding incident on then-Tampa Bay forward Vladislav Namestnikov.

Everybody on the email sends Parros thoughts, and it’s up to him to determine whether a phone (possible five-or-fewer-game suspension) or in-person (possible six-or-more-game suspension) hearing should be offered.

It’s a pretty busy night on this particular evening.

Doughty elbowing Winnipeg’s Bryan Little gets a second look, Nashville’s Pekka Rinne getting run draws some scrutiny, as does a Drew Stafford hit on Oliver Bjorkstrand in the New Jersey-Columbus game. Parros and Burke immediately determine that infraction doesn’t need to be clipped and distributed to the entire department via email.

If a hearing is warranted, the league will inform the offending team. A hearing typically lasts between 20-30 minutes. Typically, only Parros talks from the league and the hearing includes the player, his agent, an NHLPA rep and the team’s GM.

It’ll be followed by a deliberation conference call with the entire Department of Player Safety offering opinions before Parros renders a decision.

There have been occasions where a player has done such a good job defending his case that he has talked the league out of suspending him. In 2015, Winnipeg’s Dustin Byfuglien did just that on an open-ice check on Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher, convincing the league that he hadn't targeted Gallagher's head.

“We ended up doing a video explaining what he explained to us,” Burke said. “We do go in with an open mind, and players who take it seriously who present their case can point some things out that maybe we missed, and we listen. There have been times where we’re like, 'Wow, we didn’t see that.' Sometimes they may point things out where it doesn’t change it from suspension to not a suspension, but we’re like, 'OK, that is a good point.' But they can absolutely talk us out of supplemental discipline. It’s the opportunity for the player to explain himself.”

Sometimes, hearings are short and sweet.

Burke says the easiest hearing since he has been in the department was when the Wild’s Ryan Suter elbowed Pittsburgh’s Steve Downie in January 2015.

“Suter got on the call and said, ‘Yeah, I elbowed him right in the head. I apologize. It was a reflex, he got past me, and I threw it up. I didn’t mean to, and you guys will never see me again, but I totally get it. I screwed up and I won’t try to convince you I didn’t.’ He was respectful and polite. We got off the call, and were like, two games.”

A decade ago, it felt like there was an epidemic of head shots in the NHL. The league cracked down, and they really have become fewer and fewer in today’s game.

Players adjusted to the point that very rarely do you see a Raffi Torres incident anymore. That’s why when an incident like Ottawa’s Alex Burrows kneeing New Jersey’s Taylor Hall in the head occurs, it becomes especially magnified, Parros said.

“We’ve eliminated a lot of those predatory type hits,” said Parros, who issued Burrows a 10-game suspension. “They do stand out when you do see them because they’re so rare, and that’s a credit to Shanahan and Q and Damian and all the guys in this department that have really started the department from the very beginning.

“The players are smart and they adjust. They had to go through an education process, but they now know the standards that we are trying to apply. So now when you see a Rule 48 illegal check to the head, it’s usually an incidental or accidental play.”

The language of Rule 48.1: Illegal Check to the Head

point of contact and such contact to the head was avoidable is not permitted.

In determining whether contact with an opponent's head was avoidable,

the circumstances of the hit including the following shall be considered: A hit resulting in contact with an opponent’s head where the head was the mainpoint of contact and such contact to the head was avoidable is not permitted.In determining whether contact with an opponent's head was avoidable,the circumstances of the hit including the following shall be considered: (i) Whether the player attempted to hit squarely through the opponent’s body and

the head was not “picked” as a result of poor timing, poor angle of approach, or

unnecessary extension of the body upward or outward. (ii) Whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position by assuming a posture

that made head contact on an otherwise full body check unavoidable. (iii) Whether the opponent materially changed the position of his body or head

immediately prior to or simultaneously with the hit in a way that significantly

contributed to the head contact.

From 2011-15, there were 32 Rule 48 suspensions totaling 106 regular-season games. In 2015-16, there were six suspensions totaling 17 games. Last year, there were four suspensions totaling nine games. This season, there has been one totaling two games.

While there have been a few other suspensions resulting in head contact, they weren’t classified as Rule 48. Basically, whether people want to believe it or not, fewer guys are hitting each other in the head.

There are still tough calls. Last week, St. Louis’ Brayden Schenn avoided suspension on a check to Boston’s David Krejci’s head because the office deemed the contact unavoidable due to Krejci’s positioning once Schenn committed to the check. Not all checks to the head are considered illegal.

“I think we’ve taken out the really blatant stuff, the major suspensions,” Burke said. “Twenty years ago, guys were attacking each other. It was a gong show and completely out of nowhere and non-hockey plays. The vast majority of our suspensions now are guys that miss by just a little bit. They’re a fraction of a second too late or half an inch too high, and when we see those malicious over-the-top ones, it stands out because you see it so rarely now that when it happens everyone’s like, 'Woah, woah, woah, where did that come from?'

“It’s a fast game played by big, strong, physical people. We’re never going to have a league that doesn’t have suspensions, but I do think the really blatant over-the-top attacks have been cut to a minimum. Most of the suspensions you see now, the guy gets on the hearing and goes, 'I was trying to hit him in the chest, I was three inches too high. I missed, I’m really sorry.' We’re like, 'Yup, got it.'”

In the 90s, there were kneeing, butt-ending and slew-footing epidemics. The league cracked down and there’s less and less.

This season, the league has cracked down on slashing. Parros is particularly focusing on ones behind the play, non-hockey related or locations across the hands, fingers or wrists. Players have gotten warned, fined or suspended.

Rule 48 suspensions, by year Year Suspensions/fines Games lost 2011-12 8 suspensions, 1 fine 26 2012-13* 3 suspensions 9 2013-14 12 suspensions 45 (plus 3 in playoffs) 2014-15 9 suspensions, 2 fines 26 2015-16 6 suspensions 17 2016-17 4 suspensions 9 2017-18 1 suspension 2 * — Lockout season, 48 games only

Data from NHL

Through Saturday night's games, slashing penalties are up 57 percent over last season with 1,037 slashing minors through 998 NHL games played this season.

But the league believes scoring has increased because of the crackdown, players are safer because of it and players have changed their behavior to the point slashing penalties are starting to decrease from the start of the season.

“It took two months of a lot of whistles being blown, but guess what, they’ve for the most part stopped doing that,” Burke said.

Parros takes his job very seriously. In his office, he has folder upon folder showing the history of every suspension in every category. He studies them regularly.

“I try to do my homework and put some thought into this,” Parros said. “We don’t just pick numbers out of the air.”

But the reality is when it comes to suspensions, this is not an exact science. There’s no computer program where you can upload a video of an infraction and a number’s going to spit out the correct punishment.

In all, Parros has suspended players 23 times totaling 77 preseason and regular-season games, including an automatic 10-game suspension to Detroit’s Luke Witkowski for returning to the ice to take part in an altercation after being escorted off by an official.

“They’re snowflakes. Every one’s different,” Parros said. “There are similarities, but no two incidents are the exact same. A lot of these are tough calls to make. Very little separates them.

“I understand that when people look at our decisions, there are times when they question them. But when you look at the process and the level of commitment that goes into it, that these guys are watching every second of every game, that anything even borderline is flagged to me, I don’t think people can question that. lt’s absolutely meticulous what these guys pour through and the stuff they pay attention to. As you can see, it’s Distraction Central in here. You come in here and you don’t know where to look. There’s a lot of going on, a lot to take in. It’s a well-run, well-oiled machine.

“This job is not without its challenges, but we run it pretty smooth.

“The game right now is as good it’s ever been. It’s really fast, really entertaining, there’s the right amount of physicality and we’re trying to keep it that way. I don’t expect everyone to agree with us all the time, but we’re trying to make this game safer and protect the players.”

(Top image: Inside the NHL's Department of Player Safety, where every game gets a dedicated monitor. Credit: Michael Russo)