Golden Knights winger Ryan Reaves will have a hearing Monday for roughing/unsportsmanlike conduct after an incident involving Avalanche defenceman Ryan Graves during Game 1 of their second-round series.
Midway through the third period of an increasingly physical and lopsided matchup, Reaves started an altercation in front of Colorado's net when he cross-checked Avalanche goaltender Philipp Grubauer. During the ensuing scrum, he threw Graves to the ice and appeared to knee him in the face once down. Reaves was given a match penalty on the play.
Following the game, a 7-1 Colorado victory for a 1-0 series lead, Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said Reaves was "on a mission to hurt someone."
“I don’t know if you can call that physicality. Reaves, he’s on a mission to hurt someone in the third,” Landeskog told reporters. “That’s what he goes out and does. I’m sure the league will take a look at it. It was intent to injure.”
Graves remained down on the ice for a few moments as the scrum continued to break out around him. He was able to skate off on his own.
Vegas head coach Pete DeBoer, when asked about Reaves, called the forward “one of the cleanest tough guys I've seen in the league.”
"It's not hard to defend Ryan Reaves. For me, Ryan Reaves is one of the cleanest tough guys I've seen in the league in my 12, 13 years,” DeBoer told reporters (quote via David Schoen of the Las Vegas Review-Journal). “As far as the incident, I don't know. That's in player safety."
DeBoer continued, "His gloves never came off, and nobody was hurt on the play. Whether they're going to look at what's between the lines there and think that there's something that maybe I don't see, that's their department not mine."
Jared Bednar's response this AM: "He knows his player. I guess I don't think he's out there trying to injury people on purpose. He's just got a ruggedness to his game and it is what it is. But in that situation in the game I just didn't like it. That's my opinion."
— Mike Chambers (@MikeChambers) May 31, 2021
Earlier in the game, Graves was issued a minor interference penalty after a hard hid to Vegas forward Mattias Janmark in the second period which sent Janmark to the dressing room after being helped off the ice.
