Tyler Myers and Connor McDavid were issued matching three-game suspensions for cross-checks thrown during Saturday’s game between the Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks.
While there was a scrum in front of Vancouver net involving McDavid and Conor Garland, Tyler Myers threw a cross-check to the face of Evan Bouchard, who was skating in from the blueline to the faceoff circle.
Both players received match penalties with under five seconds remaining in the contest, which earned them a hearing with the National Hockey League’s Department of Player’s Safety (DoPS).
After the meetings took place on Monday, Myers met with the media in Vancouver and explained his side of the story. The 6-foot-8 defender claimed that he didn’t mean to hit Bouchard in the face and offered that a slow-motion video would prove his innocence.
“Things were getting heated there at the end,” Myers said. “I’m not ignorant to the fact of how it looks in real-time. But if you slow it down, I did start lower, and as [Bouchard] started to bring his hands up, it redirected my stick a little bit higher.
“I know how it looks. I never intended to hit him in the face. I’ve never cross-checked anyone in the face in my whole career. I was talking to [Bouchard] at the red-line afterward and he seemed to be okay.
“I don’t want to hit a guy in the face. It was unfortunate that it ended up that way. Glad he’s okay.”
Myers reiterated his stance on what happened and what he said during his call with the DoPS, emphasizing that the result of his stick hitting Bouchard in the face didn’t match his intent.
“I know how it looks, especially in real-time. But for me, what I talked about was my intent. I didn’t intend to hit him in the face. I have a video. When you slow it down, it starts lower, and my stick gets redirected. I know it happens fast. I know the way it looks, but it’s just explaining that wasn’t my intention, and we’ll see what happens.”
The league ultimately decided that both McDavid and Myers deserved matching three-game suspensions. Both players will be out when the Oilers host the Canucks on Thursday.
Myers has been suspended two other times during his NHL career. The first was a three-game suspension for boarding Montreal Canadiens forward Scott Gomez back in 2012 and the other was a three-game suspension for a hit to the head of New Jersey Devils forward Dainius Zubrus in 2014