Devin Shore taken out by brutal knee on knee from Ian Cole.

This is a bad one and you have to assume that the National Hockey League will be taking a long hard look at this play and may very well seek out additional discipline in this case.

On Sunday the Colorado Avalanche were in sunny California melting the snow off their shoulders as the paid a visit the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Unfortunately although it may have been a sunny visit for the Avalanche they brought with them a very dark cloud in the form of veteran Avalanche defenseman Ian Cole. Cole crossed the line on Sunday when he delivered what can only be described as a brutal looking knee on knee style hit to Anaheim Ducks forward Devin Shore.

Shore, a 24 year old center, appears to have been badly injured on the play and was entirely unable to get up and support his own weight following the contact with Cole. In fact it took multiple members of the Ducks to help carry Shore back to the Anaheim bench and even then it looked as if the young man would have a hard time getting back to the locker room. As of this writing there has been no update from the Ducks on the status of Devin Shore but given how bad this looked I do not expect him back any time in the immediate future. 

As for Cole, a 30 year old former first round draft selection, he was awarded a 5 minute major on the play and as I mentioned before I would not be surprised to see him earn some additional time off as a result of this particular hit. Cole has been struggling somewhat this season and has looked slow at times on the Avalanche blue line and this feels like it may be one more symptom of that decline from Cole on the season.

I will say in Cole's defense however that it is quite clear that some of the blame for how this hurt turned our also lies on the shoulders of Shore himself. Shore saw the contact from Cole coming and tried to cut back across his body to avoid it, putting himself in the vulnerable position that led to the knee on knee contact between the 2 men. That being said Cole is an experienced NHL player and should know better than to have his leg out like that.

[pub]