NHL releases a new video to justify not suspending Zach Whitecloud for his hit on Matthew Knies

Over the last week, there seems to have been a major increase in checks to the head in the NHL and now the NHL has addressed several of their latest rulings.

This past week the Toronto Maple Leafs were part of two controversial hits in two separate games.

The first hit came from Ryan Reaves who made head contact with Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse leading him to suffer an injury.

After being ejected from the game Ryan Reaves would eventually be handed a 5 game suspension.

Then last night as the Toronto Maple Leafs took on the Vegas Golden Knights a similarly controversial play took place.

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies was struck with a massive hit that seemed to make contact with his head from Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Zach Whitecloud.

The play was originally deemed to be a major penalty and then reviewed and ultimately no penalty was assessed on the play.

Regardless the NHL was expected to take a look at the play and they did determining that no fine or suspension was warranted from the hit by Zach Whitecloud.

This ruling by the NHL seemed inconsistent and frustrated many Toronto Maple Leafs fans who saw one of their own suspended for a similar hit.

The frustration and confusion from fans throughout the NHL led the NHL's Department of Player Safety to make a statement in a video detailing their thought process.

NHL Department of Player Safety explains controversial decision to not suspend Zach Whitecloud

This evening the NHL Department of Player Safety put out a post on X where they talked about several recent rulings they made.

First, they spoke about the Ryan Reaves head contact that led to the five-game suspension.

According to the video, Ryan Reaves makes minimal contact with Darnell Nurse's body and Darnell Nurse's head absorbs the brunt of the contact,

The thing that makes the Matthew Knies play different according to the Department of Player Safety is that despite being hit in the head the contact was through the entire body simultaneously.

In the rules, this means the NHL deemed that Matthew Knies's head did not take the majority of the force to his head and therefore it is considered a clean hit within the rules of Rule 48.

It is interesting that such a small distinction can differentiate between a five-game suspension for one player and no suspension for the other player.

The full video of the explanation from the NHL's Department of Player Safety can be seen below.

Regardless it seems like the NHL has made their decisions and will not be changing them anytime soon.

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