Hitting a rival with a stick is not appropriate when you are on the ice, but it can be done. Daring an opposing player from his bench, on the other hand, is a no.
Suspended a game for making this gesture against Travis Konecny of the Flyers last Thursday, Kaiden Guhle understood it. We won’t take it again.
“I had my lesson,” said the defender on Monday afternoon.
“I just wanted to protect a teammate. But when I look back on it, it wasn’t the smartest thing to do,” he added.
Archive photo, AFP
Indeed, Kaiden. A somewhat stupid gesture that forced him to spend his Good Friday near his phone waiting for calls from George Parros, director of the player safety department.
“I didn’t have much to say in my defense other than I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Guhle said. What I wanted was to get him away from a teammate, to tell him to push himself away. I didn’t think, it was in the heat of the moment.”
The player to protect was Juraj Slafkovsky. A few seconds earlier, the Slovak had had trouble with Konecny.
“Slaf is the youngest player on our team, a first overall pick. I felt I had to make him understand to leave him alone, explained the Albertan, who himself had received a visit from the Flyers forward earlier in the meeting.
“He came to hit me, but it had nothing to do with [avec mon geste]. The check was clean,” he maintained.
This was Guhle’s first suspension at the professional level. Even during his junior career, he never missed a game for this reason. Moreover, this immaculate past may have saved him from receiving a longer suspension.
Team strength
Obviously, it wasn’t the idea of the century. “It’s an expensive blow,” said Martin St-Louis with a smirk.
Nevertheless, it demonstrates a certain unity within the group. Both Konecny’s gesture and that of Guhle came at the very end of the second period. Which led to a crowd near the red line. No one returned to the locker room before the referees threatened to impose penalties.
“There is a lot of emotion in this locker room. The guys hold each other. We’ve seen him a little more in recent matches,” said Josh Anderson.
In this regard, the Canadian head coach does not hate what he sees.
“We must have a team strength, an identity which demonstrates that we do not play with white gloves. We talked about that, said St-Louis. We have players for whom it is easier because it is in their DNA. But it has to be contagious.”
“We must remain disciplined and avoid receiving stupid punishments, but it takes robustness,” he insisted. Hockey is a physical and energetic game. It’s difficult to do that if you’re playing on the outskirts.”
Primeau, player of the month
At this level, the Panthers, visitors to the Bell Center on Tuesday evening, will be a good test. With Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett and Ryan Lomberg in the lead, the Florida team specializes in scuffles and robust play.
She leads the NHL with 2,082 hits and ranks second in penalty minutes (1,006).
“It’s to be expected. There game will be played more between the whistles, but the scrums are part of the game. It doesn’t bother us,” assured St-Louis.
Furthermore, St-Louis did not want to reveal the identity of its starting goalkeeper for this match. Note that Cayden Primeau won the Molson Cup for the March segment.
In five games over the past month, the 24-year-old goalie posted a 3-1-1 record, in addition to maintaining a goals-against average of 1.97 as well as a save percentage of .939.