Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman has been fined $4,427.08 for high-sticking Winnipeg Jets forward Cole Perfetti. The infraction came with 1:51 remaining in the opening period of their December 31 game in Minnesota.
After Winnipeg’s Vladislav Namestnikov as tossed from the faceoff dot, Perfetti stepped in. He lined up against Hartman for a draw deep in the Wild zone. Instead of making a play on the puck, Hartman brought his stick right up into Perfetti’s face. No penalty was called on the play.
“I asked the refs about it,” said Perfetti. “They said it’s tough off of the draw because you’re battling for the faceoff, trying to lift sticks and stuff. It’s sometimes tough because high sticks don’t get called off faceoffs because it’s flying around, and to be fair, at game speed on the ice level, I’m sure that looked like he tried to lift my stick and missed and caught me. But when you watch the video, it’s pretty obvious that the puck was nowhere near. My stick was up in the air and his stick – he decided to come up with it.”
Perfetti’s assessment is spot on. Even Rule 60 acknowledges that high sticking penalties can be tricky on faceoffs:
…a player is permitted accidental contact on an opponent if the act is committed as a normal windup or follow through of a shooting motion, or accidental contact on the opposing center who is bent over during the course of a face-off.
Obviously, the replay shows that this was not accidental.
“There’s nothing they could really do after the fact,” the Jets center admitted. “Missed calls happen.”
Perfetti was cut on the play but returned to the game.
“Glad Player Safety and the league stepped in and did something about that. It didn’t feel nice,” said Perfetti. “He knew what he was doing. Hockey happens – it happens fast. It’s tough to get that [penalty call] off the draw. Everything happens so quickly.”
“I wasn’t expecting anything major like a suspension, but it’s nice to see there’s a little bit of repercussions for that. My face was pretty sore, but it’s all good now.”
Normally, that would be the end of the the story. A high stick, a fine, we move on. But wait – as the television hucksters say – there’s more…
Perfetti also spoke about Hartman’s admitted motivation for the apparently-deliberate high stick.
Hartman told Perfetti that the high stick was delivered in retribution for an injury to Wild winger Kirill Kaprizov from a Brenden Dillon cross check in a game three days prior. Kaprisov left that game, missed Sunday’s match, and is currently day-to-day.
“He said, ‘No disrespect, nothing against you… it had to happen, something had to happen for what happened to Kaprizov there,'” Perfitti said. “He wasn’t trying to be a bad guy. That’s what he thought he needed to do to get back at us, and that’s what he chose to do. Lucky it wasn’t a cheap shot hit from behind or to the head or something that could’ve been serious. Lucky it was just a couple of stitches.”
“Kind of a weird thing to come out and admit it. He blatantly said it was for what happened [Saturday], even though I didn’t even do anything in the play. I had nothing to do with it.”
In Saturday’s game, Minnesota’s Jake Middleton dropped the gloves with Dillon in response to the Kaprizov cross-check. Apparently, that wasn’t enough for Hartman, who carried his grudge – and intent to injure someone – into Sunday’s rematch.
“They weren’t happy with what happened the day before, and he tried to take it into his own hands, and that’s what he decided to do,” said Perfetti. “He got fined for it, so we’ll move on.”
As if Perfetti’s recollection wasn’t enough, the Jets winger was also mic’d up during the game, which presumably captured the entire exchange.
Despite the potentially damning evidence, those mic’d up moments are not allowed to be used in Player Safety rulings, as reported by Jeff Marek.
Further note on Hartman situation – in exchange for players agreeing to wear mics, none of the audio captured can be used in connection with disciplinary action. This goes back to the 2005 agreement.
— Jeff Marek (@JeffMarek) January 2, 2024
“We’ll see him whenever we play him again later down the road. We got the last laugh winning both games, so not too worried about it.”
That ‘whenever’ will be on February 20, when the Wild head north to Winnipeg.
The Winnipeg Jets won Saturday’s game 4-2, with referees Pierre Lambert (#37) and Cody Beach (#45) and linesmen Devin Berg (#87) and Jonathan Deschamps (#80) working.
The Jets also took Sunday’s rematch 3-2, which was officiated by refs Kyle Rehman (#10) and Ghislain Hebert (#22), with Steve Barton (#59) and Brandon Gawryletz (#64) on lines.
