Draisaitl takes Tkachuk out of the game with an ugly looking slewfoot.

Things have gotten ugly in Alberta.

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HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Draisaitl takes Tkachuk out of the game with an ugly looking slewfoot.

If you were one of the fans that was hoping to see the Battle of Alberta get a little spicier than this incident is likely going to produce exactly what you are hoping for. Considering there has always been bad blood between these two teams it will be extremely interesting to see how much things escalate following the Saturday night match up between the Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers.

Some are already calling for Edmonton Oilers star forward Leon Draisaitl to be suspended by the National Hockey League's department of player safety, and although there's really no way to guess how the NHL will eventually handle this incident I would not be surprised to see Draisaitl on the receiving end of some extra discipline. Draisaitl took some serious liberties with the Calgary Flames' Matthew Tkachuk when he stepped into what looked like it was going to be a body check attempt from Tkachuk and leveled the Flames forward as a result. 

Initially it looked like a great display of physical strength from the Oilers forward but after seeing multiple angles on the video replay it now looks very much like the reason that Draisaitl was so able to physically dominate Tkachuk on the exchange was due to a rather nasty cheap shot from Draisaitl. When making contact with Tkachuk the video replay shows Draisaitl delivering what looks very much like a slewfoot to Tkachuk, and when you observe the angle at which Tkachuk falls there seems to be very little doubt about the fact that this is exactly what happened. 

Now Tkachuk is notorious for his ability to get under the skin of even some of the NHL's most established veterans, just ask Los Angeles Kings' star defenseman Drew Doughty, but even that kind of antagonistic behavior does not mean you deserve to be dropped on the back of your head. The way Tkachuk's head smacked the ice following the slewfoot looked rather ugly and it's no surprise that he would leave the game following the incident and that he still has not returned at this stage of the game.

Hopefully this won't lead to a serious injury, but regardless of whether or not it does the Flames will almost certainly be asking the league to review this play.

[pub]


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