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MINNEAPOLIS — A Nashville Predators forward whose illegal hit injured Minnesota Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon has been suspended for several games.
The NHL hearing for Zachary L’Heureux took place Thursday afternoon, the league’s Department of Player Safety said. L’Heureux is suspended without pay for three games.
L’Heureux will forfeit just under $13,500, per the terms of the collective bargaining agreement and based on his average annual salary. The funds will go to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.
L’Heureux was given a match penalty in the second period of the two teams’ New Year’s Eve matchup when he took down Spurgeon behind the Wild’s goal.
Ellen Schmidt / Getty Images
The NHL defined L’Heureux’s act as “slew-footing,” which according to the league’s rulebook is “the act of a player using his leg or foot to knock or kick an opponent’s feet from under him, or pushes an opponent’s upper body backward with an arm or elbow, and at the same time with a forward motion of his leg, knocks or kicks the opponent’s feet from under him, causing him to fall violently to the ice.”
Slew-footing is an automatic match penalty. While he hadn’t been suspended in the NHL until Thursday, L’Heureux was suspended four times in a single season while playing for Halifax in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, according to the Predators.
Spurgeon was ruled out of Tuesday’s game with a lower-body injury after the hit. Following the game, Wild head coach John Hynes called it a “cheap hit” and “undisciplined play.”
On Thursday, general manager Bill Guerin said Spurgeon will be out for two-to-three weeks with an apparent right leg injury. He added the injury is not as bad as they initially thought it to be and no surgery is required.
