I’ve received a lot of inquiries over the course of the day regarding reports on ESPN this morning that Washington Capitals Forward Donald Brashear and Defensman Mike Green were suspended for Game 7 tomorrow night.
This report was patently false, although there is a decent chance that Brash could be suspended for contact with Colton Orr during the pre-game skate and the viscious hit (although clean, IMHO) he put on Blair Betts during Game 6, a hit that resulted in a broken orbital bone for the Blueshirts top penalty killer.
From the NHL.com’s Rangers-Capitals blog:
ESPN erroneously reported that Mike Green and Brashear were suspended this morning. The Brashear news is a possibility, but not official. The Green report was shocking and completely untrue. I’m told that a fan posing as a Washington Post reporter called ESPN and told them Green and Brashear were suspended. ESPN put it on its bottom line ticker and reported it on SportsCenter this morning. It was completely untrue and they retracted it immediately. Green was laughing about it this afternoon.
If Brash can’t go, Captain Chris Clark would likely get the nod, with Michael Nylander an outside possibility.
Scott,
If the hit was late it is not clean. Besides the fact that you make a labored attempt to utilize a Thesaurus – check your spelling (i.e. viscious) genius. – that’s why he received the suspension.
By clean, I mean that I do not believe there was any intent to injure on the play. If the hit is late, it is interference. That does not make it a dirty hit. From every angle I’ve seen, Brashear hit him with the shoulder. I understand that the outcome was terrible, but that doesn’t have any bearing on the hit itself.
There have been plenty of hard hits by both teams in this series. That’s playoff hockey.