Just two days into the season and the Department of Player Safety has some work to do. Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog will have a hearing for his hit on Chicago Blackhawks forward Kirby Dach last night.
Partway through the third period, Landeskog delivered a hard check while Dach was already down on one knee, driving him into the boards with quite a bit of force. He received a two-minute boarding penalty for the play, while also taking a roughing penalty for the scrum that occurred with Tyler Johnson immediately afterward.
Dach escaped major injury, which will help Landeskog’s case with the DoPS, but this isn’t the first time he’s been given supplementary discipline. In fact, he has been suspended on several different occasions in the past, for both dangerous hits and cross-checking in particular. Though he won’t be considered a repeat offender in terms of salary forfeiture, the league will include his entire discipline history in deciding how to punish him in this instance.
Should’ve been a major.
Wasn’t a good hit but shouldn’t be suspended! The Avalanche were on the receiving end of some hits last year by Vegas with one being not even a penalty!! One, I believe resulted in a concussion for Byram.
What does Vegas have to do with this lol? Haven’t seen the hit yet but if he deserves to be suspended then he should be suspended, plain and simple.
@thomasavalanche – Unfortunately, that’s not good reasoning to negate a potential suspension for this hit. Landy’s got a serious burr in his saddle for that shift, hoping to wake his crew up. At game speed, from one angle, it looks like it’s bang-bang, and he doesn’t have time to hold up. From a different angle, in slo-mo, it seems like he had time to pull up at least a little. Parros might end up giving him a game, for both the elbow at Hagel and the hit, though. I wouldn’t necessarily vote for a suspension, but we are talking Parros & Co., so keep that track record in mind.
If that’s not suspension worthy to you I don’t know what possibly could be. That’s the definition of boarding.
@JD – Could be, but as I stated, we are talking about Parros and his magic dart board.
That was most certainly not sportsman-like conduct.