Dallas Stars forward Ryan Garbutt wound up on the wrong side of the law during Game 4 against the Anaheim Ducks.
Garbutt was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for spearing Ducks forward Corey Perry in the groin. This comes after Perry got away with spearing Stars captain Jamie Benn during Game 2.
Stars coach Lindy Ruff gave his thoughts on Garbutt’s incident and he thinks it’s being blown a bit out of proportion as Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News shares.
“It’s something we obviously don’t want to see,” Ruff said. “I didn’t think it was as bad as it was made out to be. I don’t think it was as bad as the spearing on Jamie Benn, in my eyes. It’s still definitely a penalty, and it’s something I don’t want to see as a coach.”
Obviously Ruff has a bit of a slanted view on each situation, but the key difference here is Garbutt got caught red-handed and Perry dropped to the ice in heap.
That kind of stuff is hard to ignore and with the proliferation of spearing incidents in the playoffs, officials are keeping closer tabs on how sticks are being used. After Milan Lucic was dinged for just $5,000 for spearing Detroit’s Danny DeKeyser, don’t expect to see much, if any, league punishment for Garbutt.