Completely Unnecessary

This is the face of an NHL player who likely just cost his team a playoff series. This is the face of a player whose selfish, gutless play at the end of Game One between the Jets and Canadiens shows disbelief in the penalties he's being assessed for his wholly unnecessary hit. This is the face of a player who will now have time to reflect on his actions as he watches his team try to fend off the Canadiens from the pressbox. This is the face of Mark Scheifele who, for all intents and purposes, may not play again this season thanks to his actions tonight.

Mark Scheifele is going to be suspended by the NHL's Department of Player Safety for his hit on Jake Evans in the dying minutes of Game One following Evans scoring the empty-net goal to give Montreal the 5-3 victory. There's no doubt that his hit was unnecessary, dangerous, and caused an injury to Evans. The only thing to debate at this point is how many games will Scheifele get for his actions.

Perhaps the only Jet who deserves a pass on this night considering how poorly the Jets started the game is Nikolaj Ehlers. Ehlers, it should be noted, held the pack of scrumming players back as Jake Evans lay on the ice after the Scheifele hit, and Ehlers helped the Jets' training staff across the ice so they could assist in treating Evans. That, folks, is leadership and sportsmanship, and Nik Ehlers deserves some applause for protecting and helping a fallen player regardless of the colour of his jersey.

You might be wondering where the video of this hit is, and I've chosen not to post it out of respect for Jake Evans. It's his 25th birthday today, and the last place he should be spending it is inside of a hospital. My hopes are for a speedy recovery for Jake Evans following tonight's situation, and that there are no lingering issues from the hit he absorbed.

I do want to be clear in stating that I do believe that Scheifele's hit wasn't meant to hurt Evans nor do I believe that he had any intention for the hit to cause the injury to Evans whatsoever. Scheifele's never been a dirty player by any means, so I think this is an unfortunate accident where a guy was charging hard back into his own zone where the resulting collision was made worse by the speed at which he was skating.

Accidents, however, have consequences as any car owner will tell you, and Mark Scheifele was in the wrong here as he slammed into Evans. Based on the camera angles, it appears that Scheifele caught Evans' head with his shoulder, and that means there's a better than likely chance that Evans suffered a concussion as he does have a history with them. I hope this isn't the case, but Evans' head and face also hit the ice as he went down, so it seems extremely minute that he didn't escape this incident without a concussion.

Again, I hope the optics are infinitely worse than the injury, but the overall effect is that Evans likely is done for this series based on what was seen on replays and in slow-motion, and Mark Scheifele's playoffs may be over thanks to the suspension he's likely going to receive if the Jets don't improve their play in quick fashion.

For Scheifele, let's not forget that he wears a letter, and this reckless hit was completely unnecessary at that point of the game as Evans had clearly scored moments before Scheifele arrived on the scene. He already knew that the team was down Paul Stastny and that defenceman Dylan DeMelo played all of one shift, so taking a run at a guy when you're already missing two key players is awfully dumb and completely selfish. In theory, the Jets could be down two key centerman and a shutdown defender for this series if Scheifele's suspension goes longer than a game. And it should be longer than a game.

We'll see what the Department of Player Safety comes up with in terms of a punishment, but Mark Scheifele's hit tonight was completely unnecessary when you consider he's leaving his team even more shorthanded than they were before, and his hit removed a key offensive player for the Jets in himself against a world-class netminder.

If the Jets lose this series, there will be a few things to discuss that will have factored into that loss, but none may be as big as the Jets' top-line centerman excusing himself from the majority, if not all, of the series because he had some wild idea to send a statement on a meaningless empty-net goal. There wasn't going to be a hero tonight for the Jets, and they'd live to fight another day.

Instead, Mark Scheifele went and unwittingly made himself the villain in this series. And it was completely unnecessary.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!