The Department of Player Safety has decided that New York Rangers forward Pavel Buchnevich will have to sit out, giving him a one-game suspension today after his high stick on Washington Capitals forward Anthony Mantha. The incident occurred last night in the brawling rematch between the two clubs and earned Buchnevich a five-minute major and game misconduct. As the accompanying video explains:
It is important to note that while we agree that Buchnevich’s actions are defensive in nature, players are not excused from following league rules because of the actions of their opponent. While Mantha’s actions may have been provacative, Buchnevich is not permitted to respond to that provacation with a reckless and forceful strike directly to the face of an opponent.
As the league notes, Buchnevich has never been suspended or fined in his 300-game NHL career. Mantha also did not suffer a serious injury on the play. Both of those things would have factored into the decision to hand out the one-game suspension.
The Rangers of course will not be happy with this decision, given how publicly they called out DoPS head George Parros earlier this week for his decision to not suspend Washington forward Tom Wilson. The team called that a “horrifying act of violence” that went basically unpunished (Wilson did receive a $5,000 fine for his punch on Buchnevich). At his introductory press conference today, new Rangers president and GM Chris Drury said he expected Buchnevich to be gone for the rest of the season. The Rangers have two games left, meaning he could actually play in the season finale against Boston on Saturday.
Oh WELL..
smh…………lots…………So if Buchnevich was being defensive, why no action against the guy who he was defending himself from? Mantha had his stick up to crosscheck Buchnevich high, towards Buchnevich’s neck area and Buchnevich happened to see it and was quick enough to use his stick to block it?
That’s actually a reasonable suspension… had they suspended Wilson.
Still no mention about what Wilson did to Panarin……which was far worse and Wilson was on offense not defense at all.
Also no mention of what Crosby did to Konecny…
Don’t you know??? Crosby is the golden boy
If it was the other way around, TK would be gone
Buchnevich realized the league won’t defend him so he had to defend himself
Even though I knew this would happen, you’ve got to be freaking kidding me. What an ass backwards league. A $5000 fine would have been funnier to be honest.