NHL suspends Ducks’ Radko Gudas 5 video games for hit on Auston Matthews

Anaheim Ducks captain Radko Gudas has been suspended for 5 video games and fined $104,166.65 by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety on Friday for his knee-to-knee hit on Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews in the course of the Leafs’ 6-4 win on Thursday night time.

It is the fifth suspension for Gudas in his 14-year NHL profession and his first since 2019, when he obtained two video games for high-sticking Tampa Bay Lightning star Nikita Kucherov. Gudas’ longest suspension was 10 video games, given after he slashed Mathieu Perreault within the neck in 2017. The 35-year-old Gudas will probably be eligible to return on March 24 for Anaheim’s street sport towards the Vancouver Canucks.

The league didn’t contemplate Gudas as a “repeat offender” when it got here to the quantity of his high-quality, as a result of it had been greater than 18 months since Gudas’ final incident. But a participant’s general historical past might be considered when figuring out supplemental self-discipline.

At 15:47 of the second interval on Thursday, and with the Ducks holding a 3-2 lead, Gudas stretched his bent left leg out and caught Matthews’ left knee after Matthews took a move within the slot space inside the Anaheim zone and readied for a scoring probability.

Matthews went down in ache, left the ice with out placing weight on his leg and didn’t return to the sport. Gudas was given a five-minute main penalty and a sport misconduct penalty, and Toronto scored twice on the ensuing energy play to take the lead on the best way to snapping an eight-game winless streak.

Ducks coach Joel Quenneville mentioned he felt there was no premeditation by Gudas on the play, however Toronto coach Craig Berube and Leafs heart John Tavares referred to as it a grimy hit. The Leafs initially didn’t reply on the ice however obtained bodily with Anaheim within the third interval, together with a battle by rookie Easton Cowan towards Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe.

“It was a little back-and-forth game like that,” LaCombe mentioned. “A little chippy. I guess I just hit one of their guys and he stepped in for his teammate. It was expected. Just one of those that’s part of the game. I was expecting it.”

The Ducks might have newly acquired John Carlson able to step in and fill Gudas’ absence. Carlson, whom Anaheim obtained from the Washington Capitals finally week’s commerce deadline, has been skating with the crew the final a number of days as he recovers from a lower-body damage that’s stored him out of motion since Feb. 6. Anaheim might have an all-veteran proper facet of its blue line when Gudas returns to go along with Carlson and Jacob Trouba, complementing its younger puck movers on the left.

Gudas has two objectives, 11 assists, 45 penalty minutes and a minus-1 score for Anaheim, which holds a slim lead within the Pacific Division because it makes an attempt to make the playoffs for the primary time since 2018.