Connor McDavid Makes His Feelings Known Regarding Radko Gudas’ 5-Game Suspension Following Hit on Auston Matthews

Connor McDavid would share his thoughts regarding Radko Gudas' 5-game suspension after his hit ended the 2025-26 season of Auston Matthews.

Connor McDavid Makes His Feelings Known Regarding Radko Gudas’ 5-Game Suspension Following Hit on Auston Matthews

Radko Gudas, Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews (Image via ClutchPoints/Imago/X/@BR_OpenIce)

Last week, Radko Gudas found himself under severe backlash following his hit on Auston Matthews. After the NHL Department of Player Safety (DoPS) suspended him for 5 games, there was more outrage regarding the length of the suspension. On Sunday, Connor McDavid made his feelings known regarding this.

The original incident took place during the game between the Anaheim Ducks and the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday. Held at the Scotiabank Arena, the Maple Leafs were hoping to end a barren 8-game losing run.

The game did not start well for them as they found themselves behind early on. While they did turn this around and emerged as 6-4 winners, they suffered a major loss in their captain, Auston Matthews.

The American international had been on a 12-game goal drought. His power play goal in the 2nd period made it a 3-2 game and spanned his personal goalless streak as well.

Minutes after his goal, he suffered a knee-to-knee hit from Gudas. Matthews would clutch his left knee in pain and was slow to get up. Gudas, meanwhile, was handed a 5-minute major penalty and ejected from the game.

A day after this incident, the Maple Leafs announced that Matthews had suffered a Grade 3 torn medial collateral ligament (MCL) and quad contusion. He will thus miss the remainder of the 2025-26 season.

On Friday, the NHL Department of Player Safety would have a telephone hearing with Gudas. Despite being a repeated offender, he only got a suspension of 5 games, the maximum in a phone hearing.

The NHL fans on social media were irate with this. They would slam the DoPS for the length of suspension of Gudas and call them out.

Two days after this incident, Connor McDavid was asked about his thoughts regarding this. The Edmonton Oilers captain expressed that they should look at the process, as many times, fans are unhappy with the rulings.

If every time there is a suspension everybody complains about it well, why don’t we take a look at the process and figure out if there’s a better way to make sure that both parties are happy because it seems like there’s a lot of frustration.

Connor McDavid said on Radko Gudas’ suspension

Last month, McDavid was part of Team Canada, who took on Czechia during the Winter Olympics. In the quarter finals, Gudas would collide with Sidney Crosby.

The Canadian captain would miss the semi-finals and the gold medal game due to this collision. McDavid was thus handed the captain’s “C” in the absence of Crosby.

Connor McDavid recently got involved into a scrum as well

Connor McDavid recently got involved in a huge scrum. During the Edmonton Oilers’ game against the Dallas Stars, the forward threw some punches and almost got involved in a rare fight.

Connor McDavid
Connor McDavid (Image via X/@TSNHockey)

While McDavid is known for his goal-scoring and playmaking abilities, he very rarely gets into fights with opposition players. Sometimes, even the best lose their cool.

This is what happened in the recent Oilers-Stars game. The incident took place towards the end of the second period when the Stars were 5-2 away.

As the horn sounded off to signal the end of the period, a scrum broke out near the boards. Stars forward Arttu Hyry was seen chirping at McDavid.

The 3-time NHL MVP would try to confront him. Justin Hryckowian got between them. This resulted in a big shuffle with McDavid throwing some punches at the 25-year-old forward.

McDavid and the Oilers ended up losing 7-2. They then lost 3-2 in overtime against the St. Louis Blues before beating Nashville Predators 3-1 on Sunday.

In the 3-1, McDavid had a hat-trick of assists. With this performance, he has 114 points (37 goals and 77 assists) in 68 games. The Oilers, meanwhile, are third in the Pacific Division standings with a 33-26-9 record.

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