The Department of Player Safety has handed out a pair of fines today, giving a $5,000 bill to both Ryan Johansen of the Nashville Predators and Evander Kane of the San Jose Sharks. Johansen’s incident occurred when he tried to throw a reverse check against Tampa Bay Lightning Brayden Point and caught him square with an elbow in last night’s game. Kane meanwhile also tried to throw a preemptive strike on Radko Gudas of the Washington Capitals and caught him up high with an elbow. Both players received game misconducts.
Though neither player will end up suspended, fines like this are taken into account down the road when it comes to other potential discipline. The $5,000 figure was the largest suspension allowed under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Neither Point nor Gudas appear to have suffered any real injury on the play, which is also taken into account when deciding on supplementary discipline.
Judging by the outrage shown on the Caps’ side of the interweb radio broadcast that I was listening to last night, this looks like a hand-slap to EK9.
Yet that hit by Cernak that took Carr outta the game was overlooked?! The NHLDPS absolutely missed that call and should be handing down another suspension to him… ♂️