Connor McDavid ejected for boarding major.

An ugly hit from McDavid.

Jonathan Larrivee
Jonathan Larrivee
Published 2 years ago
Connor McDavid ejected for boarding major.

Edmonton Oilers Connor McDavid certainly won't be putting this moment on his personal highlight reel.

On Sunday night during a game between the aforementioned Oilers and the Los Angeles Kings, the Oilers captain found himself ejected from the contest after he delivered an ugly hit to the back of Los Angeles Kings forward Adrian Kempe. It was a textbook boarding call, one that sent Kempe face first into the protective glass along the boards, and one that was violent enough to leave him leaking on the ice.

McDavid caught Kempe while he was previously engaged in a puck battle along the boards and came in at somewhat of an awkward angle to deliver the hit. The end result was McDavid delivering a hit that caught Kempe almost directly between the numbers, and again one that was forceful enough to drive Kempe's face into the glass and cause significant damage. The officials hand went up immediately following the hit and although I don't believe they originally intended to toss McDavid from the game, I suspect that once they saw Kempe's face they felt they had relatively little choice to make the call.

Kempe was not only leaking on the ice but when he smiled at the official on the ice you could see that his teeth were covered in his own blood, likely as the result of a cut he suffered when going into the boards. As is the case with all major penalties now in the National Hockey League the play was put under review, but it took relatively little time for the league to come back with their ruling, resulting in McDavid being ejected.

The timing of the penalty from McDavid could not have been any worse as it effectively took his team out of the game. There was just over 6 minutes left on the game clock when he took the penalty, and while the Kings were already up 2 - 1 at the time that lead ballooned to a score of 5 - 1 by the time the final horn had sounded.

The fact that the hit came so late in the game didn't help make this look any better for McDavid.

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