The NHL’s Department of Player Safety has issued their first suspension of the preseason.
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Conor Geekie has been suspended for one preseason game for leaving the bench on a legal line change to start an altercation.
Earlier in the second period of Wednesday’s game, Florida Panthers prospect Josh Davies laid a hard, legal hit on Bolts captain Victor Hedman. Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov immediately went after Davies, picking up a roughing minor.
Not satisfied that justice had been served, Geekie took the ice on a line change and skated directly to Davies – away from the play – and cross-checked him. Geekie eventually goaded the young forward into a fight, with both players dropping the gloves.
“It’s one of those things, it doesn’t matter if it’s [Hedman] or whoever it is,” Geekie said, per the Tampa Bay Times. “I think anyone gets hit like that, someone’s got to step up, and I figured that I could be that guy. It worked out, but anyone could do it. I’m sure a lot of guys were thinking the same thing as me.”
From the NHL’s Department of Player Safety:
Lightning forward Conor Geekie was penalties after leaving the players’ bench on a legal line change to immediately initiate an altercation with Panthers forward Josh Davies.
As the video shows, Geekie comes onto the ice from the bench as part of a line change as the Lightning advance the puck on the opposite side of the ice. As soon as he comes onto the ice, disregarding the play completely, he skates directly to Davies for the purpose of starting an altercation. First, he cross-checks him and, when Davies declines to engage, geeky pursues him from behind. Geekie persists in chasing Davies from center ice all the way down into the Florida face off circle, dropping his gloves in the process.
This is a violation of rule 70.2 which states in part, ‘a player who has entered the game while play is in progress from his own players bench who starts an altercation may be subject to discipline in accordance with Rule 28 – Supplementary Discipline.’
It is important to note that Geekie’s sole objective on this play is to confront Davies. Rather than making any move at all toward the play or in the direction of the puck, Geekie instead comes directly off of the bench for the purpose of instigating this altercation, then pursues Davies for an extended amount of time while forcing Davies into said altercation.
To summarize, this is a violation of NHL Rule 70.2 which prohibits a player from starting an altercation immediately after leaving the bench on a legal line change. Geekie has been neither fined nor suspended previously.
Here’s the rule in question:
70.2 Legal Line Change – A player who has entered the game while play is in progress from his own players’ bench … who starts an altercation may be subject to discipline in accordance with Rule 28 – Supplementary Discipline.
Rule 28 simply allows the commissioner to hand out supplemental discipline.
In addition to the automatic fines and suspensions imposed under these rules, the Commissioner may, at his discretion, investigate any incident that occurs in connection with any Pre-season, Exhibition, League or Playoff game and may assess additional fines and/or suspensions for any offense committed during the course of a game or any aftermath thereof by a player, goalkeeper, Trainer, Manager, Coach or non-playing Club personnel or Club executive, whether or not such offense has been penalized by the Referee.
If Geekie had left the bench to start an altercation other than following a legal line change, he would’ve picked up an automatic game misconduct.
The Tampa Bay Lightning lost the game 2-1 to the Florida Panthers. Referees for the game were T.J. Luxmore (#21) and Furman South (#13), with linesmen Ryan Jackson (#84) and Andrew Smith (#51).
