The NHL has handed down punishments after a couple of incidents involving high profile players in the Sharks-Senators game on Wednesday night at Canadian Tire Centre.
Ottawa’s Mike Hoffman has been suspended for two games as a result of his cross-check to the head of the Sharks’ Logan Couture. The league determined that Hoffman didn’t target Couture’s head, as Brenden Dillon’s stick was a mitigating factor, but since a player is ultimately responsible for his stick, a brief suspension was warranted.
Couture left the game at 7:50 of the third period and did not return, but is expected to play on Friday night in Montreal.
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Earlier Friday, Couture described what happened, from his perspective.
“I shoved [Hoffman] on the entry there, and I was going to the net to look for someone to pick up, and the next thing I know I’m getting hit in the back of the head. When it first happened, I didn’t know what hit me, if the puck had possibly hit me or accidentally one of our guys. Until I saw the replay and saw the guy skates around the zone and cross checks me in the back of the head – I was stunned,” Couture said.
“Then, afterwards just have to go through all the concussion protocol and everything. I spent time with their doctor, and thankfully I was lucky. He thought and I thought that I was alright, so he cleared me. It was too late to come back [in the game], by the time that was done it was the end of regulation and I had missed 15 minutes.”
The NHL also announced that Marc-Edouard Vlasic was fined $5,000, the maximum allowed under the collective bargaining agreement, for the “dangerous use of his stick” on Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson.
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In the final minute of the second period the two defensemen got tangled up in the corner, with Vlasic seemingly jabbing his stick into Karlsson’s midsection.