When is a hit considered a ‘late' hit? Not even NHL players are sure.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Could a major league baseball player charge from the dugout and blind side Kerry Wood just after he's thrown a pitch?

Could an NBA player sneak up behind Shaq just after he's released a free throw and level him with a shot to the knees?

Of course not.

Which is why some NHL players and coaches dislike the unflattering image their game projects every time a player is staggered by a hit such as that thrown by the Devils' Scott Stevens against the Ducks' Paul Kariya in the Stanley Cup finals Saturday night.

Kariya, leveled a millisecond after getting rid of the puck at center ice, lay motionless on the ice and looked as if he might be seriously hurt.

But he was cleared to play again in minutes and returned to a thunderous ovation to score a goal in the Ducks' 5-2 victory.

The Ducks, of course, felt the hit was a late one because Kariya didn't have the puck.

The Devils, of course, strongly defended Stevens, one of hockey's notorious big hitters.

Devils coach Pat Burns even made a caustic comment that, “Obviously, he wasn't that hurt” because Kariya came back to score a goal.

The NHL didn't even wait until the game was over to rush out an official statement by officiating chief Andy Van Hellemond that the hit was legal.

“It was a nice hockey hit,” Van Hellemond said.

As Stevens said afterward, physical play is as much a part of hockey as goaltending and scoring goals.

In many cases, hockey is essentially football on skates, with players pushing, shoving, maneuvering, fighting and using their strength to gain time and space to do their jobs.

But football also has rules to protect the unprotected — roughing the quarterback, clipping, spearing.

Hockey's rules, some players say, often seem to vary widely depending on which rulebook interpretation is being followed which week.

(Case in point: the memorandum made public after Brett Hull, his skate clearly in the crease and apparently in violation of what was a much-enforced rule that season, scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in Game 6 against Buffalo in 1999).

“You're supposed to have the puck,” in order to be hit in that situation,” Ducks coach Mike Babcock said of the Kariya hit.

Burns' reaction to that?

“It doesn't matter what Mike Babcock says,” Burns said.

“The league said it's a clean hit and I'm satisfied with that. I'm not going to comment on what he says, that's for sure.”