Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was disgusted. But it had nothing to do with the 4-3 overtime loss his team had just suffered.
About an hour earlier, the Edmonton Oilers winger had witnessed teammate, defenseman Darnell Nurse, being helped off the ice after taking a nasty hit to the head from Toronto Maple Leafs’ Ryan Reaves. And while the hit was clearly illegal from a rules standpoint, what Nugent-Hopkins kept going back to was also how unnecessary it was.
“I think it’s a dangerous play,” said Nugent-Hopkins. “He’s got to know that Nurse doesn’t see him coming and choose the right path there — he doesn’t. It’s tough to see one of your teammates on the ice like that. Dangerous play. You never want to see it.”
Bobby McMann on the Reaves hit on Nurse:
“Yeah, that’s the side of the game that you never want to see. Guys are playing hard. I don’t think he was trying to finish high like that. I know he wasn’t. He’s just playing it hard and trying to get through guys, trying to win a hockey…— David Alter (@dalter) November 17, 2024
Nurse was carrying the puck from behind the Oilers net in the second period when Reaves charged at him and delivered a massive hit to Nurse’s head, dislodging his helmet. Replays showed that Nurse probably didn’t see Reaves. If he did, it wasn’t until the last possible second.
Even then, there was nothing he could have done to brace for the impact.
“You never want to see that,” said Oilers winger Adam Henrique. “We all know that things happen. The game’s fast. Things happen quick. But you never want to see that. Just avoid the hit. I mean, we’re professional athletes. We’re able to make those decisions quick in our head. You know when a guy is vulnerable or in a bad spot.
Nurse remained down for a minute or so, before being helped off the ice. The Oilers reported that he had an upper-body injury and would not return to the game, but didn’t off any more information on his injury.
“I’m worried about the player,” said Knoblauch. “Obviously, contact to the head, we don’t want that. I won’t go into details about how severe it was and all that.
As for Reaves, he was ejected from the game and will likely face supplemental discipline.
It was contact to the head,” said Knoblauch. “I did see it. And that’s what I saw.”
“They’ll deal with it,” Nugent-Hopkins said of the Department of Player Safety. “The call on the ice was obviously the right call. They’ll take a good, hard look, for sure.”
The loss of Nurse could be a devastating blow for the Oilers, who have gone 3-0-1 in their past four games and had been finally playing the kind of hockey that got them to within Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final last year.
Nurse has two goals and nine points in 17 games, while averaging nearly 22 minutes.
“Darnell is very important,” said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch. “Penalty kill, power play, five on five minutes. He’s very important to our team, especially with how he’s been playing this past week or two.”