Bo Horvat had already settled Thursday night. The New York Islanders captain scored on the power play in the first period, then collected the puck in his own end with 1:33 left and fired it the length of the ice into Chicago’s empty net for his second of the game and a 4-1 lead.
A second after the puck left his stick, Frank Nazar caught him high with a shoulder to the head. Horvat went twisting through the air, landed on his side and was slow to get up.
The officials reviewed it and handed Nazar a five-minute major and a game misconduct. Horvat eventually got to his feet, exchanged words with Bowen Byram while his linemates went looking for Nazar, and was then taken down the tunnel by the concussion spotter for testing.
The reaction online was close to unanimous.
“Nasty cheap shot, man. Never even looked at the puck. Hoping Horvat is okay,” one fan wrote.
“That’s a bad hit. Especially with the game already decided,” another said, while a third pointed at the timing: “Wow, at the end of the game like that too.”
Will Frank Nazar be suspended?
The Department of Player Safety hasn’t announced anything, but a match penalty for an illegal check to the head on a defenseless player generally gets a look. Islanders head coach Peter DeBoer didn’t hide what he thought of it.
“You don’t like that hit, especially at that time in the game and who it’s on,” DeBoer said, per SNY. “I think they got the call right, and we’ll see, but you don’t like to see that on anybody.”
DeBoer had no update on his captain afterwards beyond confirming he was still being evaluated.
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There’s an awkward footnote for Chicago. Nazar had scored a minute before the hit, ending Ilya Sorokin‘s shutout bid with the Blackhawks’ only goal, and head coach Jeff Blashill had been praising his performance. The 4-1 defeat dropped Chicago to 1-4-0 and 0-4-0 on the road, despite what Blashill considered their best showing of the season.
By several accounts Nazar’s own reaction suggested he knew immediately how it looked.
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