The Calgary Flames are in the midst of a battle for a playoff berth, but they’ll be a bit shorthanded for the next couple of games. On Thursday afternoon, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced that Flames forward Connor Zary has been suspended two games for an elbow delivered to Vancouver Canucks defenceman Elias Pettersson in the first period of Wednesday night’s game.
Per the league’s ruling, Zary will be unavailable for the Flames’ game on Friday at home against the Colorado Avalanche and their game on Monday in Toronto against the Maple Leafs. He’ll be eligible to return to action on Tuesday in New York against the Rangers.
The incident took place at the 11:19 mark of the first period, after Pettersson dropped Nazem Kadri with a clean, legal check at the Canucks blueline on an attempted zone entry. Zary went right after Pettersson and delivered what Player Safety’s video described as a “late, high, retaliatory hit.”
Here’s the crux of Player Safety’s argument for a suspension:
“It is important to note that this is not a case where a player’s sudden movements cause a hitter to reflexively extend an elbow in a way that turns a legal hit into an illegal one. On this play, Zary sees a teammate take a hard but legal check, and responds intentionally in retribution in delivering a hit with his extended elbow that makes significant head contact and is delivered with requisite force for supplemental discipline.”
A few times this season, younger Flames players have stuck up for their veteran teammates – in January alone, Adam Klapka went after Washington’s Tom Wilson after a hit on Mikael Backlund and Matt Coronato fought Nashville’s Jonathan Marchessault after he crunched Backlund. But the NHL has made a pretty clear distinction between sticking up for teammates and retaliatory plays that cross the line, and they’ve put Zary’s conduct in the latter category.
The Flames may also be without Backlund for Friday’s game with Colorado, as Backlund left Wednesday’s game with an upper body injury.
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