Jason Demers Elbow: Department of Player Safety Calling?
Demers hit Bonino in the head. Will supplementary discipline be coming?
The end of the Dallas Stars dismantling of the Pittsburgh Penguins was a bit of a free for all. Weird penalty calls went against the Stars. The Penguins seemed to get away with murder, particularly Sidney Crosby on the eventual five minute major powerplay. But the most egregious of the infractions is this one committed by Stars defenseman Jason Demers:
Demers gets a major and game misconduct for elbowing Bonino, who was down for a while & left the game pic.twitter.com/B9wgTxCUyn
— Stephanie (@myregularface) October 23, 2015
Nick Bonino was clearly in bad shape after the hit. He couldn't stand straight and concussion protocols had to be triggered somewhere. There's no way one of the NHL spotters saw that and wasn't alarmed.
The principal point of contact for the hit was Demers' elbow to Bonino's head. I don't know that Demers was targeting Bonino's head intentionally. Given his track record I tend to doubt it, but the hit looks pretty bad.
Will Demers be getting a call from the NHL's Department of Player Safety? Given the focus on concussions it certainly seems possible.
What say you? Is he getting a call?
