Early in the day at the Tampa Bay Lightning off-day media session, head coach Jon Cooper was asked about the status of forward Brandon Hagel. He didn’t play coy with his answer.
“Well, he’s not playing tomorrow, so there it is. And it’s, you know why.”
The “know why” was an elbow/forearm to the head of Hagel from Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad. Later in the day, the Department of Player Safety announced that Ekblad, who just finished a twenty-game suspension for PED use, was suspended for two games.
Hagel was visibly dazed as he left the ice, and he didn’t return to the game. The Lightning, ignited by the hit (and the lack of a call), quickly scored two goals to take a lead into the third period. However, not having one of their better defensive forwards in the final period came back to haunt them as Ekblad would tie the game late in the frame, followed by a Seth Jones goal that gave the home team the lead.
In Hagel’s absence, Coach Cooper relied heavily on two of his top forwards as Jake Guentzel (10:50) and Nikita Kucherov (10:52) played more than half of the period. Both players were on the ice for the Ekblad game-tying goal.
Hagel, who missed Game 3 due to a suspension for his hit on Aleksander Barkov, had yet to make much of an offensive impact in the series as he had not recorded a point in his limited action. However, the Lightning had positive possession numbers during his time on the ice despite the fact that only 5 of his 19 shifts at 5v5 started in the offensive zone. They also lose the penalty-kill connection that he has with Anthony Cirelli. He also plays the dogged, hard-on-the-boards, type of game that a team needs against the Panthers.
The Lightning didn’t practice on Tuesday, so their line configuration aren’t known at this point. The Lightning rotated a lot of players with Anthony Cirelli when Hagel missed Game 3 with the veteran center lining up between Nick Paul and Gage Goncalves for the most ice time (2:58), but that trio was held without a shot attempt in their time again. The big question will concern which player comes into the line-up. Conor Geekie was scratched in Game 4 while Cameron Atkinson has yet to suit up for a game. Coach Cooper has only gone 12/6 once in the postseason (the Game 2 loss), so it’s unlikely that both come into the game.
In their ruling, DoPS ruled that Ekblad’s hit was an intentional blow delivered directly to the head that resulted in an injury. They were clear to point out that it wasn’t the type of hit that started at the shoulder or chest and rode up to the head, but that the head was the clear target. Despite Ekblad’s assertion that he did not intend to hit Hagel in the head, they felt it was worth a two-game suspension.
Ekblad was playing just his second game since early March as he was coming off a 20-game suspension for PED use. That suspension was not meted out by the Department of Player Safety, so it had no bearing in their ruling for this play. In his absence, Seth Jones will likely move back to the top pairing while Nate Schmidt flips back to his offside and Uvis Balinskis will draw back into the line-up.
The Panthers avoided a double suspension as Niko Mikkola was assessed a fine for his boarding of Zemgus Girgensons in the third period. With Mikkola receiving a game misconduct, the maximum fine of $5,000 was the probable outcome of the hit, even if it was, in some ways, more blatant of an attempt to injure than the Ekblad hit.
Including the last meeting in the regular season, the two teams have now combined for three suspensions (Hagel, Ekblad, and Jesse Puljujarvi) and one maximum fine (Mikkola) in supplemental discipline. It’s definitely living up to it’s Battle for Florida standards. We’ll see if there are any more fireworks in store tomorrow.
