The Department of Player Safety has made a decision follow Josh Morrissey’s hearing with them this afternoon. They have decided to suspend him for one game.
The NHL acknowledges that while Morrissey did not intend to hit Eric Staal in the neck, he did and he is responsible for his stick at all times.
TSN did mention that the lack of in-game discipline might weigh on the decision, but it should not and the only people who should be affected by the referees miss is those referees themselves who are evaluated game to game before being given an assignment in the next round.
Precedence wise, this moves aligns with Matt Calvert’s suspension last playoff and Brandon Dubinsky’s last regular season, although both suspensions were for more aggressive cross-checks. If this is the precedence for this year’s playoffs, it is a fine precedence to set.
The Jets defence should be interesting tomorrow night and could really benefit from a surprise appearance from Tobias Enstrom. If that happens, it might be smart to through him with Jacob Trouba and put Sami Niku with Dustin Byfuglien to try to have a competent top four. Other then that, the Jets will be in tough tomorrow night.
As for the fact Nino Neiderreiter head-butted someone last night and got nothing? That’s the way the cookie crumbles and we just have to live with it.
