The question isn’t whether Nazem Kadri will get suspended for his illegal hit to the head against St. Louis Blues defenseman Justin Faulk, but for how long?
Technically, Kadri is already on suspension after he was given a match penalty at 6:30 of the third period Wednesday in the Avalanche’s 6-3 win in Game 2 of the best-of-7 Stanley Cup First Round series.
Here’s my NHL.com RECAP of Wednesday’s game.
Kadri on Thursday was offered an in-person hearing with the NHL Department of Player Safety at a date and time to be determined.
Faulk didn’t return and his status for Game 3 in St. Louis on Friday is questionable at best.
A player is offered an in-person hearing if the infraction might require a suspension of six games or more. In this case, Kadri is suspended until the hearing takes place. If he waives his right to an in-person hearing, the hearing will be conducted by phone.
********** Home games in CAPS, all times MT
Mon., Avalanche W 4-1 Wed., Avalanche W 6-3 Fri., at St. Louis, 7:30 p.m. Sun., at St. Louis, 3 p.m. Tue., May 25, ST. LOUIS, TBD *Thur., May 27, at St. Louis, TBD *Sat., May 29, ST. LOUIS *If necessary
**********
“Obviously I’m not happy about it,… Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said Thursday. “I think he’s trying to do the right thing. He comes back on a tracking play, (Faulk’s) getting within the danger zone of being in the scoring position and Naz comes in and gets physical. But you can see it on the tape that he catches him high, so we’ll just wait to see what the league has to say about it.…
Kadri has been suspended in the playoffs before, most recently in 2019 when he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He was suspended for the final five games of their first-round series for a high cross-check against the Boston Bruins’ Jake DeBrusk.
“Sometimes you just don’t know which way or how these things go, but we could be missing him for a little bit,… Bednar said. “I guess that’s part of the game. Sometimes you get caught in those positions and you’re trying to keep the puck out of your net and (Kadri) catches (Faulk) high. It’s unfortunate.…
Bednar said Carl Soderberg, who was scratched for the first two games, will play Friday. “I haven’t figured out our lines yet,… he said.
Tyson Jost, J.T. Compher and rookie Alex Newhook are other options at center. Depth sure helps.
The Blues already were without defenseman Vince Dunn for the first two games (along with leading scorer David Perron due to COVID-19 protocol) and they were down to four defensemen because Robert Bortuzzo didn’t return after a hit from Jost in the second period.
“I didn’t think there was much there,… Bednar said. “They’re coming in contact, Bortuzzo starts to spin out as Jost is moving into the area. I don't think he's trying to get real physical on Bortuzzo. He just kind of grazes him. If you're looking at the game and watching the hits throughout the game, that's happening all over the ice in almost every series. I'm not expecting anything to come of that.…
Here's more from Bednar on Kadri:
“I saw the video now, I’ve looked at the replay. I looked at one replay and it doesn’t look that bad, I looked at the other one, it looks really bad. I think Naz is coming back and trying to do the right thing. I don’t know that he’s intentionally coming across trying to check him in the head and get suspended, but he did make a physical play on him and he did catch him on part of his head.
“We could lose our No. 2 center, so someone else has to fill those shoes. We have some guys who can fill those shoes for now and we’ll just have to see what the league has to say about it.…