Samuel Blais drills Sekera from behind but injures himself.

Sekera leaves the game.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
Samuel Blais drills Sekera from behind but injures himself.

The Dallas Stars are not going to be happy about this call but to be honest I can see why the National Hockey League's officials made the decision that they did. 

The Stars and St. Louis Blues faced off on Sunday afternoon during the round robin portion of the Stanley Cup Qualifying Round and to be perfectly blunt it was a relatively tepid affair early on as many of the round robin games have been thus far. Through two periods of play we saw only a single goal, and that came in the opening minutes of the game courtesy of Blues forward Robert Thomas, but in the game's second period things got a little more physical, much to the shagrin of Stars defenseman Andrej Sekera.

I must admit that in real time I thought this was a really dirty hit on the part of Blues forward Sammy Blais and it would appear the officials on the ice felt the same way given that they quickly awarded Blais a 5 minute major penalty on the play. Thankfully though following some serious controversy in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs the league now reviews all major penalty calls on the ice, and in this case the officials actually reversed their decision in spite of how bad the hit looked.  I suspect that the fact that Sekera himself turns to make a play on the puck at the very last moment is what resulted in the officials choosing to reduce this to a 2 minute minor, effectively punishing Blais for not letting up on the hit but also not crucifying him due to the actions of an opposing player. 

Here's a look at the review:

And some additional angles:

Unfortunately for the Blues however they have now lost Blais who went back to the locker room following the hit and did not return before the end of the games second period. In spite of the fact that Blais was the one laying the hit on Sekera it was Blais who suffered an injury on the play after Sekera fell on his leg and bent it at an awkward angle.

Pay close attention to Blais' right leg.


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