Hathaway slams Kunin's head right into the edge of the boards.

This looks like the kind of move you would expect to see out of the WWE's professional wrestling and not during a National Hockey League hockey game.

On Saturday night the Calgary Flames and the Minnesota Wild faced off in a very important match up, especially important for the Minnesota Wild who are currently fending off a number of teams in the race to the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs. As you would expect given the importance of the game for both sides this contest very much had a playoff atmosphere to it and that included things getting really rough after the first period of play.

One incident in particular will stand out above all the rest however and that is the incident that occurred between Calgary Flames veteran forward Garnet Hathaway and young Minnesota Wild forward Luke Kunin. It was a particularly nasty moment in the game and I would not be surprised of the league decided to take this one a step further and review it for additional discipline. 

It was actually Kunin who was the initial aggressor in this one, although he ended up taking by far the worst of the exchange. After a failed zone entry from the Minnesota Wild Kunin spotted an immobile Hathaway posted up along the boards trying to move the puck up the ice and decided that he would take a run at the big man. Kunin delivered what can only be described as a clean hit to the Flames big man, although admittedly it was a hit that didn't seem to move Hathaway all that much. 

It was the aftermath of the hit however that would draw all the attention and whether or not you think this was done intentionally will likely depend on your perspective. What happened next was that both men were rocked off balance by the impact of the initial hit and, either in an attempt to brace himself or in an attempt to seek revenge, Hathaway wrapped his arm around the back of Kunin's head and slammed it into the end boards, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. 

It looks awful on video replay, the question of course is whether or not this was an intentional move on the part of Hathaway. The officials on the ice ejected him for intent to injure another player so obviously they felt it was a deliberate act.

[pub]