Things haven’t been going very smoothly for the Chicago Blackhawks lately, but it darn near turned disastrous against Philadelphia Wednesday night.
With less than 30 seconds left in the first period, the Flyers’ Chris VandeVelde took a solid run at Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, earning a two-minute minor for elbowing. But upon closer review, it’s a wonder he didn’t get a harsher penalty.
As you’ll see in the video above, VandeVelde clearly catches Toews in the head with a vicious elbow, the kind of hit the NHL expressly targets for expulsion in Rule 48. While there is no provision for a five-minute major in Rule 48, the referee can hand out a Match Penalty if, in his judgement, “the player attempted to or deliberately injured his opponent with an illegal check to the head.”
Toews briefly left the bench, although this play came at the tail end of the first period. He returned for the second period, and promptly scored the go-ahead goal.
So while Toews didn’t appear worse for wear after this play, we still have to wonder whether VandeVelde will hear from the Department of Player Safety. What do you think?
