Dalton Prout had a hearing with the NHL today over his sucker punch to Nikita Kucherov on Sunday. After the hearing the NHL Department of Player Safety announced that Prout will receive a one game suspension.
Columbus’ Dalton Prout suspended one game for a punch to an unsuspecting opponent, Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov. Video: https://t.co/bRkwG6phgX
— NHL Player Safety (@NHLPlayerSafety) March 15, 2016
The whole play started when Nick Foligno clipped Ben Bishop behind the net. The Tampa players swarmed Foligno, and Prout joined in in an effort to protect his captain. Rather than just pull players off of Foligno, Prout decided to come in fists a blazing.
Dalton Prout checks in with something that's not sporting or, uh, legal pic.twitter.com/pMN4OhZdHZ
— Ryan Real (@ryanreal) March 13, 2016
That is clearly a reckless play and one that wasn’t needed at all. To make matter worse it knocked Kucherov from the game (Kucherov left, came back played one shift and was done for the night). There has been no word out of Tampa as to how severe the injury is.
Prout has no prior history of fines or suspensions before this, but he is definitely getting the reputation as a dirty player. He has always been a tough physical player, but it seems like this season he's gone over the edge more; most notably when he attacked Sergei Plotnikov.
death by cross checking pic.twitter.com/dF7ynFVgju
— Stephanie (@myregularface) December 22, 2015These plays have no place in the NHL. The league needs to be suspending players for actions like this. They both look like intentions to injure. One game is light for the punch but now Prout has a history and if this type of play continues he should be expecting more calls from player safety.
Prout will miss the game Thursday when the Jackets take on the Detroit Red Wings. A player will need to be recalled from Lake Erie as the Jackets have been playing with only six defencemen. My guess would be Michael Pailiotta.
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Turning 180 degrees now, Mathias Ask of The Guardian wrote a fantastic piece on Brandon Saad and how he has helped his family members escape war-torn Syria. Brandon is of Syrian descent, his father George was born there, before moving to the United States at age 18. I highly recommend reading the piece it was very well done and really hits home “that there are more important things in life than hockey.…
I talked to @BSaad20 about his Syrian family members who have fled the war https://t.co/C4E1jQI53z
— Mathias Ask (@MathiasAsk) March 15, 2016
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