NHL Player Safety has suspended Ryan Reaves.

Details inside.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
NHL Player Safety has suspended Ryan Reaves.
Richard Ulreich/CSM/Zuma

The National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety has announced a suspension to Las Vegas Golden Knights forward Ryan Reaves just prior to the start of the Western Conference Final.

Following an illegal hit to the head on the Vancouver Canucks' Tyler Motte the league has determined that the hit warrants an additional suspension of one game, this on top of the penalties that Reaves was given at the time. Reaves was assessed a match penalty on the play but in spite of that the league still felt that the hit was severe enough in nature that it warranted supplemental discipline. I suspect that the fact the hit occurred in a 7th and deciding game in a playoff series also may have influenced the ruling here from the league. 

For those of you who missed the hit, there's no question that Motte's head took a pretty big time blow from Reaves on the play. Despite the fact that he has a reputation as being very physical in his play Reaves does generally refrain from taking liberties with the health of his opponents so I would like to believe he wasn't intentionally going after Motte's head here.

Again for those of you who haven't seen it here is a replay with several angles of the hit from Reaves. 


Here is the NHL's full ruling on the hit:

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