Aaron Ness rocked by a high hit in the first game of the NHL preseason.

First suspension of the season?

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HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
Aaron Ness rocked by a high hit in the first game of the NHL preseason.

This may end up going down as the first suspendable play of the National Hockey League's 2019 preseason, and it has taken place in the very first game of that very preseason.

The Golden Knights welcomed the Arizona Coyotes to Las Vegas on Sunday night, the only game on the schedule this evening, and it did not take very long for things to get pretty rough. Now you would think that the stakes being relatively low, this is the preseason after all, would keep the games a little cleaner but that certainly was not the case on the evening. Instead we were treated to what appears to be a blatant hit to the head in the very first game on the NHL schedule. 

The play in question took place at center ice where Arizona Coyotes defenseman Aaron Ness was attempting to move the puck down the ice. Ness was struggling to maintain a firm grip on the puck and, although he did manage to clear the puck down the ice, it would leave him extremely vulnerable to what would come next. A streaking Keegan Kolesar of the Las Vegas Golden Knights tried to put a stop to Ness' play in the neutral and did zone by leveling him with a thunderous hit that left Ness in the fetal position on the ice. 

The hit appeared to catch Ness up high and the officials seemed to agree as they opted to toss Kolesar from the contest as a result of his infraction. Kolesar is a 22 year old guy desperate trying to make the team and make a name for himself, so I can see where he was coming from in trying to make a big play for his team, but I do not believe that this will reflect well on his judgement in the end. 


Unsurprisingly the Arizona Coyotes were not at all happy about the hit that had just left their teammate in a heap on the ice, and quickly after the hit had taken place Coyotes teammate Christian Fischer went after Kolesar himself. The two men would drop the gloves but there wasn't much to report here as the officials quickly got involved. 


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