The National Hockey League suspended Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman for one game for his hit on an unsuspecting Nikolaj Ehlers near the end of Tuesday’s game.
Hartman will miss the Wild’s final regular season game for what the league termed interference.
Hartman was only assessed a two-minute minor penalty for interference at the time. He’ll forfeit $9,189.19 in lost salary as a result of his second career suspension.
Initially after the hit, Ehlers went to the Jets bench, but soon after he went to the dressing room and he did not play again in the final eight minutes.
Ehlers was being reassessed after the game and the Jets had Wednesday off, so there’s no update on his condition. The concern is he could have suffered a concussion which would likely cause him to miss the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs next week.
“He’s in a vulnerable position,” said Jets head coach Rick Bowness after the game. “And you hate to see those hits.”
The play touched off several scrums and a fight between Adam Lowry and Ryan Reaves later in the contest.
“We’ve shown all year long that you go after one of us, you’re going after all of us,” said Bowness. “And we have no problem. They can throw everything they can at us and we’re going to stick up for ourselves. And we’re going to fight through everything.
“Dilly (Brenden Dillon) and Adam, give them full marks because they stood up for the team.”
The Jets will close out the regular season on Thursday against the Colorado Avalanche.