Anaheim Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas has been suspended for five games by the NHL Department of Player Safety for a knee-on-knee hit that ended Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews’s season.
The Maple Leafs announced on Friday that Matthews would miss the rest of the season with a Grade 3 MCL tear and quad contusion suffered in their 6-4 win over Anaheim on Thursday night. He’ll be reevaluated in two weeks. The Department of Player Safety decided to have a phone hearing with Gudas, which meant that five games were the maximum amount the NHL could give him. Suspensions of six or more games are determined via in-person hearings.
Judd Moldaver, the executive VP of the.team agency and Matthews’s agent, blasted the NHL’s decision in a statement provided to ESPN.
“In light of the obvious severity of the play, I am very disappointed and shocked that the league would allow for such a ruling. A phone hearing and five games is just laughable and preposterous,” he wrote. “While the hearing process is pre-fixed in our CBA, that there was no further discipline is a reckless and ridiculous position for Player Safety. This decision results in a further loss of confidence in the disciplinary process for all players. Players and fans deserve better. The Player Safety Department should be suspended.”
In the second period against the Ducks, Matthews received a pass from William Nylander near the left faceoff circle in Anaheim’s zone. Gudas made a beeline for him. As Matthews attempted to stickhandle around the Ducks defender, Gudas led with his left knee and collided with the left knee of the Maple Leafs captain.
Matthews immediately fell in pain and was eventually led off the ice by an athletic trainer and Toronto defenseman Brandon Carlo. Matthews would not return to the game, having gone to the locker room with 4:13 remaining in the period. Matthews had scored a power-play goal, his 27th of the season, earlier in the second.
“It’s a dirty play,” said Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube. “The league is obviously going to look at it and see what the suspension will be.”
Anaheim coach Joel Quenneville said there was “no premeditation” on the play and that the collision was the result of “reflexes.”
Gudas argued in his hearing on Friday that he was attempting to deliver a full-body check and prevent a goal. But the NHL ruled that the contact was not created by sudden or evasive movements from either player and that onus was on Gudas to deliver a legal hit.
“Instead, having led with an extended his knee and finding himself lined up outside of Matthews’s core, Gudas leans towards contact with Matthews in a way that results in a forceful, dangerous and direct knee-on-knee collision,” the NHL said.
Gudas had previously been suspended 4 times for a total of 21 games in his 14-year NHL career. His longest suspension was 10 games in 2017, while playing for the Philadelphia Flyers, for a slash to the head of Winnipeg Jets forward Mathieu Perreault. His most recent suspension was in 2019, again with the Flyers, when he received two games for a high-stick on Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov.
The Ducks defenseman can appeal the five-game ban to commissioner Gary Bettman, who would have the final say on such an appeal.
Gudas, who is Anaheim’s captain, has 2 goals in 11 assists in 52 games, skating 16:39 on average.
The Matthews incident sparked widespread criticism in Toronto media about the Maple Leafs’ response to the injurious hit on their captain. None of the other four players on the ice stepped up to confront Gudas as Matthews was writhing in pain.
“It’s on me for not responding earlier to Gudas,” said defenseman Morgan Rielly, one of the Toronto players on the ice at the time. “Obviously, it’s a dirty hit. I didn’t understand how bad he got him in the moment, but I take full responsibility for not being the first one in there or not being in there quicker to respond.”
