“Makes no sense to casual fans” – Bruins’ Taylor Hall fined $5000 for punching Maple Leafs’ Ilya Lyubushkin
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Taylor Hall
Boston Bruins’ Taylor Hall has been handed over a fine of $5,000, the maximum fine allowed under the Collective Bargaining Agreement of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Calgary native smashed a sucker punch to Toronto Maple Leafs’ defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin during Tuesday’s game at the TD Garden.
Hall was earlier hit by Lyubushkin in the neutral zone, causing him to go head-first into the advertising boards. However, the Bruins forward didn’t take it well and in retaliation, he got up and hit Lyubushkin in the face from behind.
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Following this, Lyubushkin was injured on the play and did not return to the game. Meanwhile, Hall was only assessed with a minor penalty for roughing and was ruled for two minutes in the box. Reacting to this, the NHL Department of Player Safety declined to go any further with supplemental discipline than the maximum fine amount allowed under the agreement.
To make matters worse, the officials on the ice didn’t even get the call correct as NHL rule 46.15 states: “A match penalty shall be assessed to any player who punches an unsuspecting or unwilling opponent (i.e. “sucker punch”) and causes an injury.”
“Taylor got upset and rightfully so” – Bruins coach
After the game, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy insinuated that had the Moscow Lyubushkin been called for his hit, the retaliation would have been avoided from his team’s player.
“Taylor got upset and rightfully so. [David Pastrnak] had a hard, clean hit earlier in the game. We were told nobody likes to receive a hit like that and we got the same hit [on Hall]. (The officials) are communicating to us, and they have to back up their standard. If that’s their standard then that’s their standard, and it’s entirely up to them. So stick to your standard, I guess. I get why Taylor was upset,” Cassidy said as quoted by Sporting News.
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Sachin Arora
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