The verdict is in and the first suspension of the regular season has been handed down as the Department of Player Safety announced (video link) that Blues winger Sammy Blais has received a two-game suspension for his illegal check to the head on Colorado defenseman Devon Toews on Wednesday night.
The play occurred early in the first period with Blais being assessed a minor penalty for elbowing at the time. Toews did leave the game briefly but returned and wound up logging 22:17, second on the team behind Cale Makar.
Blais will forfeit just shy of $26K in salary which will go to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund. As he’s not a repeat offender, the denominator in the equation to calculate the forfeited pay is the number of days in the season instead of the number of games. Blais has an AAV of $1.5MM and 2/1116th of that is his fine. He will miss the rematch against the Avs on Friday as well as the first of two games against San Jose and will be eligible to return to the lineup on Wednesday.
Fair
I don’t like seeing Toews putting his head down at the wrong time, but Blais could’ve easily made that an acceptable hit with almost no effort. He didn’t, so now he gets to sit for a couple…
Bunch of pansies. This is hockey. Not the the NBA