The Department of Player Safety announced that they have suspended Calgary Flames forward Milan Lucic two games for roughing Columbus Blue Jackets’ Kole Sherwood on Saturday.
Sherwood drove to the net during the second period and took a shot that was saved by Calgary’s goaltender David Rittich. After making the save, Sherwood poked at the goaltenders’ pads for which he received a two-minute slashing penalty. However, Lucic didn’t let the play end there. After slashing Sherwood’s stick away, Lucic then skated over to Sherwood, dropped his stick and punched the rookie forward, knocking him to the ground. Lucic did not make it clear that he intended to punch him, making it clearly a sucker punch.
This is the biggest suspension that Lucic has received. While he’s been involved in a number of incidents over the years, he has been suspended only twice, each for one game. He was last suspended in 2016 for punching Arizona’s Kevin Connauton and then was also suspended in 2011 for checking Philadelphia’s Zac Rinaldo. He was fined $10K last season for roughing Tampa Bay’s Mathieu Joseph.
The suspension kicks in immediately as he is expected to miss tonight’s game against in Washington, against the Capitals and then at home against Arizona on Tuesday.
Definitely a really dangerous type of play that I hope they punish more severely in the future
Really? So players should hack away at the goalie when he has the puck covered and players shouldn’t stick up for teammates. SMH. His actions wouldn’t 3ven get a minor if he wore a different jersey with a different name on the back.
He sucker punched a guy. He has recent history to take into account. It was too harsh. 2 games is fair. Goalie didnt quite have it smothered yet when action by the Jacket first started. Take off the homer glasses and look at things from a clearer view.
No sucker punch, he was facing him and basically hit him with a hard face wash. No homer glasses at all, the new style hockey is garbage. The chopping, slashing, flopping and diving has ruined the game when there’s no accountability.