Paquette facing suspension for dirty hit on Zegras.

If you saw this hit on Sunday then you knew full well that there was a very good chance that the National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety was going to take a look at it, and it now sounds like that will in fact be the case.

According to a report from Montreal Canadiens insider Eric Engels, he is now hearing that Canadiens forward Cedric Paquette will have a hearing this week for the hit that he delivered to Anaheim Ducks forward Trevor Zegras.

Update: The news is now official.

The hit from Paquette looked bad from the very start. As Zegras was playing the puck in the corner he had his back turned to Paquette the entire time, but in spite of that fact the Canadiens centerman decided to deliver a hit to Zegras anyways. The hit caught Zegras right between the numbers and appeared to catch him completely off guard. As a result Zegras was unable to defend himself from the hit he never saw coming, causing his head and face to smash into the protective glass surrounding the boards. 

The hit was delivered with considerable force and Zegras appeared to go limp as his body fell to the ice, no surprise given that he wasn't even able to get his hands up to help soften the blow. After falling to the ice Zegras appeared to be favoring his head and quickly made the decision to remove his helmet, something that the league's concussion spotters most assuredly took note of. It was when he removed his helmet that we could also see he had been busted open as a result of the hit, although it is not entirely clear what caused the cut.

It seems almost a forgone conclusion at this point that Paquette will be suspended by the league for this infraction, which is an indication of just how bad the league felt this hit was. Paquette was ejected from the game following the hit, but it would appear that the NHL feels a more severe punishment is warranted in this particular case.

Here is a replay of the hit:

And here is a second angle of the impact: