Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Video: Sedin elbows Brown -- was it retribution?

sedin hit

In Sunday’s Game 3 loss to the L.A. Kings, Henrik Sedin was on the receiving end of a devastating Dustin Brown bodycheck. The hit received a lot of notoriety and was in the public eye for quite some time (the Kings Twitter account posted it so followers could “watch it as often as you’d like.”)

While the Canucks captain later told reporters he felt the check was clean -- a claim backed up by his head coach, Alain Vigneault -- some felt Vancouver did a poor job of stepping up for its captain. Kevin Bieksa got a two minute roughing minor trying to get after Brown, but many felt that wasn’t enough to send the appropriate message.

Then on Wednesday, this happened:

Some things to consider:

-- There was no penalty on the play, though John Hoven of Mayor’s Manor said several in attendance at Staples felt it was a missed call.

-- According to CBC’s Elliotte Friedman, the NHL sent out a note saying the cut Brown suffered was caused by a puck, not Sedin.

-- Sportsnet’s John Shannon said it was a quiet night for the NHL’s Player Safety Department and that, following the Canucks-Kings game, there were no pending reviews.

-- From LA Kings Insider Rich Hammond, Brown’s postgame comments:

“I didn’t know who it was. I had a puck in my face, so my eyes were watering. I didn’t really know if it was my player, their player. I didn’t really know. Whatever hit me, hit me in the head. … I haven’t seen it. I had just got hit in the face with a puck, so I didn’t really know if it was my guy, their guy, a stick. I really didn’t know.’’

In short, it doesn’t sound as though Sedin’s elbow will be subjected to further analysis -- but at the same time, the current climate of NHL discipline could mean a wider net is being cast on reviews moving forward.

On one hand, the contact was minimal and Brown appeared uninjured (aside from the cut).

On the other, it was contact to the head and could be classified as intentional.

Brendan Shanahan has already conducted seven discipline hearings in the postseason with an eighth, involving Phoenix’s Raffi Torres, scheduled for this Friday...so who knows what Sedin might wake up to tomorrow.