Casey Cizikas facing suspension for dangerous hit on Brendan Smith.

The National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety has just made an annoucenement.

In an official release via their social media, the disciplinary arm of the NHL announced that veteran New York Islanders forward Casey Cizikas will have a hearing on Saturday for a hit he delivered to Carolina Hurricanes veteran defenseman on Friday night. The Islanders, who despite not being mathematically eliminated from playoff contention are now 11 points out of a playoff spot, defeated the Stanley Cup playoff bound Hurricanes on Friday night by a score of 2 - 1 but it sounds like that victory will cost them one of their core forwards for at least a game.

The hit in question occurred during the opening seconds of the game's third period, following a dump into the Hurricanes' zone by the Islanders on the opening faceoff. Smith went into the corner to retrieve the puck and had his back turned to Cizikas the entire way through the play, but in spite of the fact that Cizikas saw Smith's numbers the whole way he followed through with a devastating hit that sent the 33 year old Smith to the ice in a crumpled heap. Smith's head appeared to take the brunt of the blow and was driven hard into the boards and, unsurprisingly, it would take him several long moments to recover enough to get himself back to the Hurricanes' bench. Even upon reaching the bench though Smith was still in a bad way and it would be several moments longer before he was eventually helped back into the Hurricanes' locker room.

At the time of the hit the NHL officials on the ice called a penalty on the play and awarded Cizikas with a 2 minute minor penalty for "Boarding" but it appears that the league feels that punishment was not sufficient for this infraction on the part of Cizikas. Smith's head took a pretty violent impact from the boards as a result of this hit, and the NHL has shown a propensity to crackdown whenever blows to the head are involved. I suspect that will be the case for Cizikas today when it comes to this "Boarding" review from the NHL and he will get at least a game.