Brandon Prust Upset With Department of Player Safety

When Roberto Luongo left this team via trade, one couldn’t help but wonder who would be picking up the Twitter slack. As irony would have it, understudy and presumptive goalie of the future, Eddie Lack, did his best to carry the weight, before being traded to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Since then the slack has been picked up primarily by Brandon Prust. The scrappy winger has been every bit the enforcer off the ice, as he’s been on. First, Prust took Bobby Farnham to task for his gratuitous celebration after fighting Jake Virtanen.

Next on Prust’s hit-list is the Department of Player Safety.

The conversation is centered around a hit thrown by Brayden McNabb in the first period of yesterday’s game between the Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks captain, Henrik Sedin, was caught with his head down trying to reel in a puck along the boards, before being served a McNabb elbow to the head for his troubles. 

As a show of penance for the suicide pass that set the stage for this hit, Alex Biega took McNabb to task and jumped the Kings defender. It’s a weird play in and of itself, given that the Canucks lineup has considerably more fighters than your average group. You need players like Brandon Prust to keep players like Brandon Prust from taking this kind of liberty with your stars and all.

McNabb was awarded a two minute minor for roughing on the play, while Biega was assessed an extra roughing penalty and served a grand total of four minutes in the box. Perhaps unsatisfied with the price paid, Prust went ahead and fought McNabb much later in the game, with the score well out of reach. Sending a message and so on.

Frankly, I always err on the side of caution where player discipline is concerned, so I find myself agreeing with Prust on the matter at hand. There’s ample evidence to suggest that Sedin’s head was the primary point of contact, if not the primary target to begin with. There’s also a case to be made that McNabb is making a blindside hit, which is exactly the type of play the league has been trying to do away with for some time.