NHL to hold hearing for Carcillo attack on Perreault

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This article was published 17/01/2015 (3889 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Jets fans will find out sometime Sunday whether left-winger Mathieu Perreault can play his team’s home game  against the Arizona Coyotes.

Perreault was forced out of Friday night’s action in Chicago when he was cross-checked in the back and arm by volatile Blackhawks forward Daniel Carcillo with a little more than nine seconds left in the second period and the score 1-1. The Jets won the game 4-2.

Perreault has apparently told RDS reporter Renaud Lavoie he doesn’t have any broken bones, but the Jets said Saturday they don’t have any information to share on the matter and will update Perreault’s status today. It sounds likely, however, that Perreault will miss at least one game because of the incident.

Carcillo, in turn, has been made an offer he can’t refuse — an in-person hearing with the league’s department of player safety, which announced the action late Saturday afternoon.

The Hawks, who play the Dallas Stars this afternoon, held practice earlier Saturday and when it was over, Carcillo said he had no evil intent on the play.

“I was just trying to knock him off, you know?” Carcillo told reporters in Chicago Saturday. “I didn’t think it was very, like, malicious or anything.

“It was just kind of a hockey play and it was at the end of a shift. I must have just caught him between some padding. I’ve been hit there before, too. You know it hurts.”

Jets coach Paul Maurice didn’t quite see it as a hockey play.

“It was a vicious crosscheck to an unsuspecting player,” Maurice said after the game.

The league could be inclined to agree. In-person hearings with the league put a suspension of more than five games in play.

Carcillo is also a repeat offender, which won’t help his case, having previously been suspended for seven games and 10 games.

His 10-gamer last season for abuse of officials was later reduced to six games and that leniency by the commissioner won’t likely play well in the story of this incident.

It was a vicious crosscheck to an unsuspecting player

Friday, Carcillo was penalized only two minutes for the foul on Perreault, driving his stick into his opponent’s arm and back after the whistle had sounded.

Perreault, prior to the whistle, had whacked the stick out of the hands of Chicago’s Duncan Keith and a penalty (actually given to Mark Scheifele in an officiating mistake by Tom Kowal and Ghislain Hebert) was originally being called for that action.

Perreault has been on fire of late. Including his four-goal game at the MTS Centre last Tuesday against Florida, he has six goals and nine points in his last six games.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca